Students, members of the community and James Cameron fans were on hand to witness the debut of a new robot designed by University of Wisconsin students at the biannual Engineering Expo.
The robot, dubbed “Singularity” by the engineers, will be on public display during the School of Engineering’s Engineering Expo, an event running from Thursday to Saturday highlighting the projects of engineering students, according to a UW statement.
Expo Coordinator David Engeldiner said in a statement expo exhibits will showcase research being conducted by students in the college and will provide an interactive experience for attendees.
He also said the expo provides a unique experience for students interested in engineering fields to talk to students about programming and real world applications.
Elise Gale, spokesperson for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Robot Team that built the robot, said Singularity went into development nearly two years ago and is set to compete in the Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition in Rochester, Mich., in June.
Gale said while the robot may not look particularly “human friendly,” the creation has proven extremely personable.
“It’s definitely more of a WALL-E,” Gale said. “It doesn’t look all that cute on the outside, but once you see it moving for the first time all by itself, even the boys squeal a little.”
The competition will test the robot’s mobility on a 600-foot long obstacle course, the functionality of the robot’s GPS system and how well the robot communicates with other computers. She said judges will also evaluate the conceptual design of the robot.
Gale said the project did not come without its fair share of difficulties and cited a recent repair to a broken piece in the motor system as one such instance.
“Sometimes it gets a little haywire and tries to run people over,” Gale said. “It weighs about 250 lbs, so if it did run you over it’d be like J.J. Watt running into you at full speed. It wouldn’t be fun.”
The IEEE Robot Team ran into success at the 2009 IGVC, when its first robot achieved a first place in the design competition, the group’s best finish since the team was founded in 2002.
The group competes at the national competition against both undergraduate and graduate programs, which Gale said requires commitment from all team members to build a robot that will compete on the same level as those developed by engineering doctoral candidates.
Gale said while they do not usually have fans at the competition, their large group creates enough support for their mechanical teammate.
“We don’t usually bring groupies,” Gale said. “The robot will be going down the course and we know it can’t hear us, but we’ll still be yelling at it anyway, like ‘Oh no! Go Left! Go Left!’ so we’re definitely a good cheering squad.”
The statement said the Expo is run by UW undergraduate students and is open for admission to the public.
The expo will be held in the engineering building from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday and Friday and from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $4 for K-12 students and $6 for adults.
