They are still a long way from C-3PO, R2-D2 and WALL-E, but over the course of the fall semester, the UF mechanical and electrical engineering students took cracks at creating their own robots.
The Robot Media/Guest Demo Day took place in the Harris Corporation Rotunda in the New Engineering Building on Monday afternoon, attracting about 70 spectators as students showed off the robotic creations they had been working on all semester.
The two classes’ professors, Eric Schwartz and Antonio Arroyo, put on the event.
It showcased robots designed for a variety of tasks, including putting out fires, identifying home intruders and aiding future Gators in their tailgating ventures.
One of the robots was designed by a student to help play fetch with his dog, a 2-year-old German shorthaired pointer named Gunner.
The fetching robot, which was about the size of a skateboard, used an Android cell phone as a camera to search for the tennis balls.
When it identified the ball, it would move toward it and scoop it up using a rotating brush, pushing it back through a pipe and shooting it out the other end for the dog to fetch.
At one point during the event, the spectators were called outside to witness the demonstration of a flying robot, a helicopter with four propellers designed to demonstrate its ability to fly without controls using GPS systems.
Non-engineering students also contributed to this semester’s demonstration.
Chester Udell, a third-year music composition graduate student, demonstrated a robot he named “MIRAG.”
The robot automatically plucked guitar strings and played in scales based on what color shirt was in front of its camera.
Some demonstrations were more successful than others, though the successes were more abundant this semester than in others, Schwartz said.
He added that the class helps to prepare students for the real world of engineering and building from scratch.
“When they start, they know nothing about it, and at the end, they know everything about it,” Schwartz said. “So there’s no fear. UF is giving you the skills to take an idea to reality. You take some idea and you make something real out of it.”
