A UF student organization with five world-championship wins in robotics is hosting a seminar Wednesday.
Erick Schwartz is the director of the Machine Intelligence Laboratory, which hosted a group of students who built the NaviGator AMS, a robotic boat which won a world championship in December. The free seminar, on Wednesday at 5:10 p.m. in the New Engineering Building, Room 100, will teach people about the NaviGator boat and UF’s robotics programs.
“To us, robot means an intelligent mobile system that can solve a particular problem,” Schwartz, 57, said. “All of ours are autonomous, so they control themselves. They have computers, and they react to sensory things in the world.”
Students with the laboratory have won five different world championships with robots they’ve built, he said. The NaviGator AMS competed against teams from 14 universities across five different countries to win the world championship in the Maritime RobotX Challenge in Hawaii.
“If you’ve ever seen American Ninja Warrior, it’s kind of like that sort of thing for robots,” Schwartz said, referencing the TV show where people run through rigorous obstacle courses for a cash prize.
Ahad Virani, a 19-year-old UF computer science sophomore, said he would consider attending the seminar.
“It sounds like an interesting program, and the members seem to know what they’re doing based on the fact that they’re national champions,” he said.
