Skitter Robot Competition Trophies
SPRING 2022 - This semester, I was a TA for ME375 (our second introductory course on control systems), and it was the night before our semi-annual robot competition. The only problem: we had no trophies.
My friend and fellow TA Wendy and I then decided to take it upon ourselves to whip up some CAD files that we could print at our ME 3D print lab. It was 7:30pm, and the print lab closed at 9pm. We weren't about to find some generic STL files online to give to our students, so we'd better get started with the CAD.
The Robot
Quick planning led us to decide on a trophy based on the same skitter robot that everyone programmed for the race (See left). We split up the work - she would make a quick stand for the robot to sit on, and I'd tackle the little robots.
An hour later, we had something rough designed and sprinted down from the computer labs to the 3D print lab. We had to get our prints sliced and started by closing time. Fortunately, we made it, and our trophy parts were good to go on printing into the night.
Till Next Semester!
As everything was designed within an hour, there are improvements I need to make for next time - one of these things is designing these robots to print with better supports. The underside of these robots look messier than I'd like, so it's an improvement I'll have to make for next semester. Excited to see what comes next!