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Millersville University ATMAE Student Chapter |
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"BotHead" Millersville University's Robot Team
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Semi-Autonomous 1 Team "Bot Head's" automated can grab system!
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Team "Bot Head" as it was coined is Millersville University's robot team. Specifically the robot team's function is to build robots to compete against other schools. The robots are tele-operated (remote controlled) vehicles and in many cases have semi-autonomous or fully-autonomous abilities. The team was founded in 2001 as a way to involve more students in the NAIT organization while helping them strengthen their technical, managerial, and professional skills. The teams first robot "Pyrobot" was a fully-autonomous heat seeking robot. This robot was designed to follow the heat signatures of human beings. The robot competed at the 2001 RI/SME (Robotics International of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers) Robotic Challenge winning a gold award for robot construction and a god for virtual robot simulation.
In 2002 the team created a robot for the first annual Tele-Operated Manipulator contest at the NAIT convention. The soda can retrieval system did very well winning second place overall in the competition. this robot was a modified E-Maxx chassis with a manipulator attached to it. The following year the team constructed Millersville's first ever ground up robot robot. Although this robot didn't win any awards it set the stage for the success of the future Millersville Robotics teams.
In 2004 Semi-Autonomous 1 wowed spectators at NAIT's 2004 tele-operated robot manipulator contest. This robot was able to detect an object and then be activated by the operator via Bluetooth control to pick the object up automatically. The automation worked flawlessly! This robot took the competition to a new level by operating the bot solely through a wireless vision system. Automation and vision were both integrated into a laptop computer. At the competition SA-1 won the Design and Innovation award as well as Second Place Vision Class. SA-1 was later modified for the National Robotics Challenge in Marion Ohio. Here SA-1 displayed a fully-autonomous pick up function which was again activated by a Bluetooth connection. SA-1 won a Gold award in the Robot Construction category.
Keeping with Millersville's high tech tradition, the Robot Team developed another semi-autonomous robot (SA-2) which had an automated pick up activated by a limit switch in its manipulator. The competition changed this year requiring the robot to pick up a piece of conduit and place it through a hole which was 12" off the ground. Although the team again raised the bar, they didn't win any awards at the competition.
The following year, the robot team took a different approach by constructing from scratch a fully autonomous robot that would use three QTI sensors placed on the front of the bot in order to follow a foil tape throughout the course. Once again, team members used CNC machined grippers as a means of picking up an 8" piece of conduit. Millersville came home from the 2006 NAIT convention with 3rd place in the Fully Autonomous Division.
In 2007, Millersville designed and constructed Magnet Finder-1, "MF-1", the team's first magnetic field finding robot. Using 2001's Pyrobot chassis, "MF-1" contained a metal detector, aluminum actuator, magnetic field sensor, and digital compass in order to find a magnet buried underneath the sand. Once the magnet had been located, an 8" spiral spike was planted at the location of the magnet. "MF-1" had an impressive showing and won in various categories including 1st place for Best Poster, 1st place in Best Electrical/Control Methodology, and 3rd place in the overall robotics competition.
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Click on the links below to see more pictures of past bots! |
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