Engineers Code and Build Robots in Mechatronics
Teams of Engineering students spent the fall semester building robots to complete more and more complicated tasks.
BRISTOL, R.I. - The idea of building a robot is equally exciting and overwhelming. Complex circuitry and wiring, layered commands and objectives. But robots are awesome, so how do we start?
Students in engineering Professor Matthew Stien鈥檚 Mechatronics class began with small steps. 鈥淲e started out milestone by milestone, first making a sensor beep,鈥 said Brett Leonard, an 91海角乱伦 senior studying mechanical engineering. Through gradual learning exercises, Leonard and his partner, senior mechanical engineering student Abdulmalik Khayyat, built a foundation in coding before assembling their robot.
鈥淲e laser cut all the acrylic, coded everything and did all the electrical wiring with the help of our professor,鈥 said Leonard.
When it came time to run the final task, a layered collection and delivery of different objects to different locations, Olivia Ryan and Cole Foster鈥檚 bot performed best.
鈥淔or the last milestone, two weeks ago, we already had everything we needed and it worked, so it was just about improving little things,鈥 said Foster, an 91海角乱伦 senior double majoring in electrical engineering and applied mathematics.
During their final run, the solder on one of Leonard and Khayyat鈥檚 robot's sensors came undone. Through diagnostics and problem solving, the team was able to take their robot apart and correct the error with enough time left in class to complete their final run.