It took seven months to build, cost nearly a grand, required 500 man-hours. And a few days before the robot went to war, someone sat on it.
“I had it under a towel on my bed, my friend sat down and she broke it,” said Brian Cornell, the computer expert on Team Shaft. “We were able to fix it, but my friend still felt terrible.”
Dorm-room mishaps were only part of the challenge of Design Competition 2003 (DC03)–Northwestern University’s 13th annual event that measures the minds and machines of undergrads. The object of the competition is to build a robot that can navigate a labyrinthine course, retrieve metal balls and drop them into holes (like futuristic golf) while eluding attacks from the other team’s robots (like futuristic karate).
The trick is that the robots must navigate on their own–without remote control. Directions must be programmed into the robots before the matches using computer code. Each team had a month to practice on the course, learning the distances between turns, the angles of ramps and the locations of holes. But still, the course was daunting. (Imagine trying to drive to your local Radio Shack with your eyes closed.)
You wouldn’t mistake the competitors at DC03 for Northwestern football players. But then, you also wouldn’t mistake them for nerds (one team mocked that image by naming itself Nurds). The 115 students come across as normal college kids–dressed fashionably with more piercings than pocket protectors, more Levis than lab coats.
“That whole geek association with robot competitions is fading away,” said Team Shaft’s Adam Rizak, a freshman computer engineering major. “That’s an old stereotype.”
Here’s the lineup
Though stereotypically brainy, Team Shaft was like most other teams at DC03: unique. Cornell (sophomore/computer sciences major) is tall, affable and quick to joke about his team. “I’d describe our attitude as not very confident right now,” he said before the event.
Rizak, as a first-time DC entrant, seemed more optimistic. “Maybe if we win we’ll take the prize money in pennies and swim in it,” he said.
Peter Chung (sophomore/biomedical engineering) is the most competitive member. His athletic frame raced through the crowd all day finding parts and scouting competitors. And as the apparent leader of the team, Gokul Kumar (sophomore/biomedical engineering) was part designer and part diplomat. When squabbles arose about the robots, he quieted his teammates, chose a plan and made the changes.
Rick Dean remembers the squabbles and the thrill of competing. As the champion of the inaugural DC91 and now a software developer living in Wilmette, his fond memories lure him to the event as a spectator.
“The key to winning DC is to test and test and test and then, at the competition, have fun,” he said while inspecting Team Shaft’s robots. “I like the duct tape on this one. Good machines have a lot of duct tape.”
Chung procured that duct tape and most of the other hardware. As the fundraiser for Team Shaft, he hit up corporations for cash and donated parts.
“Our original design was off the wall,” he said with a chuckle. “We tried to use artificial intelligence, which was impossible, basically. What we learned was, `Keep it simple, stupid.'”
This is simple?
The result looked anything but simple. Three machines actually made up Team Shaft’s robotic army. The Main Unit looked like an open shoebox filled with multicolored wires. It was a strange union of ultramodern and ugly: Computer boards rested atop wads of duct tape, a wooden wheel spun across a crudely shaped piece of plumbing tube.
The two defensive robots, on the other hand, were described as “cute” by spectator Haina Shin Nu. Like hyperactive twins, these little robots scurried throughout the course, smacking into walls, each other and (ideally but infrequently) the opponent’s machine.
Rizak served as the scout for Team Shaft; when potential opponents were on the course, he scribbled the paths of their robots onto a map of the course. But he didn’t have much time to scout today; Team Shaft was slated for the first battle. The smell of grilling hot dogs wafted through the open doors of NU’s Patten Gym and mingled with the excitement in the air; electricity emanated not only from robots but from spectators and competitors as well.
As Team Shaft approached the course, the familiar bass line and bongos of Isaac Hayes’ classic blared from the sound system. “Who’s the cat that won’t cop out, when there’s danger all about … Shaft! Right on.”
Minutes before the event, Cornell played his laptop keyboard like a piano, feeding directions through a wire into the memory chip on the robot about when to turn left and how quickly to drop the metal balls. The announcer counted down: 5–the crowd cheered. 4–the teammates high-fived. 3–the robots were charged and ready. 2–the music blared. 1–the contest was on!
Twin A bolted out of the gate and sprinted after Fancy Pants’ robot. Twin B jumped two feet forward, spun to its right and died. The Main Unit lumbered into the back of Twin B, stopped and remained there until the 3-minute contest was over. It wasn’t pretty–two-thirds of its robots failed–but Team Shaft won its first match based on the distance traveled by Twin A. (Operation Fancy Pants suffered a complete malfunction.)
Conquisted in Round 2
DC02 champs and odds-on DC03 favorites, Los Conquistadors were intimidating even without their matching pirate shirts. But Team Shaft put up a good fight. Twin A sprinted from the starting line and nearly crashed into an opposing robot before ramming into a wall. Twin B and the Main Unit malfunctioned again and repeatedly rammed into a corner. Los Conquistadors sent two machines up the course’s ramps to victory.
Team Shaft ultimately fizzled out in the loser’s bracket; Los Conquistadors went on to claim the $4,000 first prize. But although the money and recognition are incentives at DC, the months of design and construction that culminate in the event are enough to sate the hungry intellects of these students. For them, DC is a chance to test their hard drives while smashing up some robots.
“We learned a lot from this competition,” said Kumar, his eyes hinting that he would be tinkering with the robot until DC04. “And Team Shaft will definitely be back next year.”
