Before "Battle Bots" was added to the long list of televised student distractions, three UB engineers were designing a 150-pound sumo robot, one designed to strategically out-muscle similar robots from some of the nation's top engineering schools.
Interest in the trio's senior project brought together a growing number of their friends in UB's chapter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering three years ago, and the group soon formed UB Robotics, the Student Association's "New Club of the Year" last year. The club pulls together students from industrial, mechanical and electrical engineering, computer science and others interested in seeing robots built from the ground up.
"Members get to see something evolve from the work they normally do for class," said UB Robotics President Yan Shtarker, who has been a member of the club since its inception. "If you only come in once a month you won't see much happening, but if you work with your team on a regular basis, you'll do and see things on your own you never thought you could do."
Along with the Society of Manufacturing Engineers' "Sumobot" contest in Pittsburgh, the club will also enter an automatic fire-fighting robot into competition in April at Trinity College. Although the club's fire-fighting robot fared well last year against amateur and professional teams from around the world, Shtarker was disappointed with the club's third-place finish in the heavyweight sumo division.
"The judges hardly stuck to the original design requirements, and it turned into a semi-Battle Bot fight," said Shtarker. UB Robotics' robot utilized a complex sensor package to determine where its opponent was, how fast and in which direction it was moving, and where the ring's boundaries were, attempting to create a strategically superior 'bot. Shtarker believes other schools, including RIT, "just get adrenaline from seeing two robots go at it."
Beyond competitions, the club attempts to educate both UB and the community in the basics of robotics. Inexperienced members and attendees at the club's seminars at the Buffalo Museum of Science are walked through the process of building a miniature BEAM robot, one which collects solar power and moves about in an insect-like manner. Members themselves benefit from working on even the most mundane aspects of a larger project, as Shtarker can attest.
"We've seen some new students come in and really take off," said Shtarker. "We'll show them something one week and ask them to try it themselves. Next week, they'll come in with everything done some great way and blow us away."
Experienced engineers also get a chance to develop academic knowledge into functional skills extremely attractive to employers. "Many kids don't realize they need to have this stuff on their resumes, people need this kind of experience," said Shtarker.
The club derives most of its equipment and support from Buffalo engineering firms, and works to form partnerships with potential employers for its members. Two of the club's original founders have gone on to employment at Motorola and API Systems, while the third is currently designing speech-responsive toys for Fisher-Price.
