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Robot Racer: LSU Student Team Wins Robotics Competition
Down on all fours, noses almost brushing the floor, a group of LSU electrical and computer engineering students searched in vain for a missing robot part. Without the part—a tiny spring—their mechanical creation couldn't perform the crucial task of firing a ping-pong ball into the air, and weeks of hard work would be trashed like so much SPAM. All in all, an inauspicious beginning for a team that hoped to bring home some championship hardware from the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 2004 Region 5 Robotics Contest in Oklahoma City. In the end, all the scraped knees and noses were for naught, as the spring was found on a nearby table. However, by the end of the competition, the mystery of the missing spring had become nothing more than an amusing footnote, as LSU's four-wheeled 'bot blew away the competition and took the top prize. High-Tech Competition
Facing off against teams from Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Illinois, and even others from Louisiana, the LSU squad's robot had its mettle tested by five grueling rounds of competition. The robot—essentially a "thinking" toy-sized car—was faced with the challenge of making successful runs down a number of tracks fraught with twists, turns, and trickery. The object was for the robot to follow a thin black line, interspersed with a several different symbols. At each symbol, the robot was required to perform a task. Failure to recognize and obey the symbols meant that the robot was forced to take a longer path or incur a time penalty. As it crossed the finish, the robot was required to fire off a ping-pong ball to signify completion. After outpacing competition from schools such as the University of Oklahoma and Tulane University in the early rounds, LSU overcame the efforts of five other teams in the final round, three of which were from the University of Houston. In the final round, LSU's robot clocked a time of 10.6 seconds, some three seconds faster than the next closest finisher. Under the advisement of electrical and computer engineering instructor Bryan Audiffred and with the support of department chair Kemin Zhou, LSU's winning team was composed of four undergraduates: Aaron Ard; Richard Capone, co-team leader; Colin Hamilton; and Lauren Hatchell, co-team leader. All are members of LSU's student chapter of IEEE. While he could not play a hands-on role in the construction or the competition, graduate student Royston Siow served as the team's "manager." Siow had been an official member of LSU's 2003 team, which didn't win, and his experience helped him provide some valuable guidance to the undergraduates. "We knew which schools we had to look out for—the ones that would pose some serious competition," he said. The Road to Success
It was an exhausting and challenging time for the team, said Capone, but it provided them with valuable experience that they could apply in future scholarly pursuits or on the job. "Academically, the project really gives you a way to apply classroom theory," Capone said. "In the end, it's not a chalkboard exercise. It is something that has to be built and it has to work." Siow concurred. "Basically, each member of the team had to act as a member of a corporation," Siow explained. "We had our own systems to design and specifications and deadlines to meet, and, most importantly, we had to communicate our ideas and recommendations to other members of the group. In short, the experience proved to be valuable training for a real-world engineering scenario." Siow said that the competition itself is a bit intimidating in the early going. All of the teams gather in a large, open hall to practice with their robots. This makes for a tense atmosphere, he says, as teams "spy" on each other to see what they are up against. However, as the competition progresses and more and more teams are eliminated, the mood lightens and students begin "networking" and making new friends. "In the end, there was a lot of camaraderie. Everyone there definitely learned a lot," he said. After the stress of the design and construction phase, Capone said that it was a relief to actually take part in the competition, and it was all the more satisfying when the team won. For her part, co-leader Hatchell said that the project was one of the most rewarding experiences for her during her time at LSU. "There were hours of hard work, late nights, and some disagreements," she said. "However, there was a great sense of satisfaction as every milestone was reached, and even more so when we finally had a completed, working robot. Winning was a lot of fun, too." Despite the joy that came with the outcome, there was a bittersweet side to wrapping it all up. The teammates had grown close during the project and, in turn, they had all become a bit attached to their creation. "After working so much on this one robot over time, you really feel a sense of attachment to it, almost like a pet," Capone said. Contact Rob Anderson | LSU
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The students spent much of the fall 2003 semester conceptualizing how the robot would look and move. Then, they spent their winter break building a test track. In the spring, they began actual construction and testing of the robot. 
