WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Purdue University robotics team, SIGBots, have performed exceptionally well this season and plan to keep up their skills at the 2022 VEX Robotics World Tournament in May.
SIGBots consists of Purdue students of all grades and majors working towards building bots that participate in the yearly Vex Robotics competitions. This year’s game, “Tipping Point,” focuses on gathering the most amount of rings on “mobile goals.” A full description of this year’s game can be found in the competition’s announcement video.
“This (past) weekend at our home competition,” Micah Rassi, SIGBots president and junior in robotics engineering technology, said, “we were, again, against each other in the finals of the bracket. And we were first and second in the skills challenge. So, we’re consistently dominant when it comes to tournaments we attend and the teams we’re playing against. And this is, you know, the highest level of competition against other, you know, engineering colleges.”
According to multiple members of SIGBots, the team has qualified for the world tournament since anyone on the team can remember. SIGBots was first established in 2010, and this year’s students are looking forward to going to an in-person world tournament for the first time since COVID-19 started.
“The good news is,” Rassi said, “since we’ve won all three of the tournaments we’ve attended … we’re going to world’s.”
“Unfortunately, with COVID, things have been a little strange,” Kunwar Sahni, a junior in computer science and officer and event coordinator in SIGBots, said. “So, the last world’s that we – I guess, any of us – went to, would probably have been our senior year of high school. So, our freshman year, there was no world’s at all.
“There was, basically – that was the peak of COVID – so they had an online championship … and we technically won that championship; however, it didn’t really feel that real since it was just a simulated competition.”
More than ever, the SIGBots members are looking forward to going to the in-person world tournament in Dallas, TX, from May 3-5.
“I personally, have never been to an in-person world championship,” Jacob Zawacki, a freshman in marketing, said. “So really just, getting to go and experience the whole event is definitely something I’m looking forward to.”
While those taking place in VEX competitions can continuously work on their robot throughout the entire season, students generally establish their robot(s) during the fall and winter semesters, and compete during the spring semester through until May.
“All three (previous matches) were back-to-back, three weekends in a row, actually,” Rassi said. “So, we traveled to Michigan, and then we swept the competition (and) won all the awards… (we won) the tournament itself, there is a skills challenge which is just your robot on a field by itself trying to score as many points as possible…
“…then there is a design or engineering notebook that we write, and then an interview we do with judges and you get judged based on how good your design process is. One of our teams won the excellence award for overall performance at the competition. (Our) other team won the design award.”
With the robotics team being open to all grades and majors, both the studying and socialization aspects of being on the team have improved team members’ Purdue experiences, according to the members.
“Coming to Purdue in fall of 2020 was pretty intimidating,” Stephen Hohnholt, a sophomore in industrial engineering, said, “because I couldn’t really meet anyone. So I was pretty restricted. Like, most of the time I was just in my dorm doing homework or just on class. I didn’t really do anything besides class.
“And then I was able to come to robotics and it was really nice, and I met a lot of people through it. And, it was a good introduction to Purdue and I met a lot of really nice people that basically helped me just acclimate to Purdue.”
SIGBots will be traveling to Texas for the world tournament in May, when its members intend on capturing the world championship title.
Margaret Christopherson is a reporter for the Journal & Courier. Email her at mchristopherson@jconline.com and follow her on Twitter @MargaretJC2.
Credit: Source link
