More than 2,000 years ago, Romans raced wooden chariots around the track at Circus Maximus for sport.
Friday, at the Reitz Union Ballroom, the past will be resurrected, albeit on a smaller scale - and with robots.
Starting at 2 p.m., 120 engineering freshmen, grouped in 30 teams of four or five, will race shoe-box sized chariots made of LEGOs they've been building and programming as part of AGN 1935, an introduction course given over summer.
While the performance of the robots will not be part of the final grade, there will be a prize for the winner, as well as small door prizes for each bracket winner and superlatives like best design, said Dan Dickrell of the UF department of mechanical and aerospace engineering.
They will, however, be graded on a written summary about the building and programming process, and the things they learned.
"We want it to be fun, but we also want them to take it seriously," Dickrell said.
In the past, the class has always ended with a building assignment, but "nothing to this magnitude of coolness," he said.
According to Dickrell, it's in the rules that chariots must be topped with a LEGO man, and if he gets knocked off, just as in real chariot races, he's dead, and the team is disqualified.
J. T. Anderson, a chemical engineering major, has spent about 10 hours on his chariot.
"This has kind of showed us that engineers are faced with a problem, and you need to figure out the best way to solve it," he said. "It's a lot of work but a lot of fun at the same time."
