Three Teams Triumph at Annual Design Competition

Twelve autonomous robots competed Saturday, May 21, at the 20th Annual Undergraduate Design Competition at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University.



The winners were:


- 1st place: Team Motion Sickness — Alfredo Osorio, Johnny Sun, Matthew Nubbe
- 2nd place: Team K2 — Greg McGlynn, Phil Goins, Garrett Grocke, Dan Cornew
- 3rd place: Team M — Wei Tong, Chia Chyuan Khor, Tee Jin Cheong
- Myke Minbiole Elegant Engineering Award: Team Motion Sickness — Alfredo Osorio, Johnny Sun, Matthew Nubbe


Teams of Northwestern undergraduates representing a variety of engineering fields spent six months designing, building and programming their robots to operate autonomously. Robots are made up of various parts, including microprocessors, actuators, motors, gears and electronic sensors. Remote control is not permitted, though teams may reprogram robots as often as desired.

This year robots competed two at a time in a large rectangular arena. Each one was assigned a color and tried to gather cylindrical objects to score points. Robots scored points in three ways: by depositing objects on its side of the arena; by depositing objects in a bonus zone toward the rear of each side for extra points; and by flipping an objects so its color faces up.

- Photos by Michael Peshkin