Meet Botchon |
Capitalism: The Final FrontierFor this year’s project, ‘Capitalism: The Final Frontier’, our team had to design and build a machine to autonomously navigate a field on Mars in order to mine resources from permitted regions.
To mine resources and collect points against the other team, our machine locates and captures MINERS before transporting them to a square that our team is permitted to mine from. Throughout the game our machine observes Martian Law. It waits for permits to be issued before starting to mine resources, ceases all activity when permits have been retracted, and detects when the permitted mining regions have changed. Read the full project description here. |
Our team was championed by Botchon. Calm, collected, and an absolute unit, Botchon uses an accelerometer, a color sensor, and SPI communication in order to locate itself on the field and generate accurate headings. More details on the different modules can be found in the electrical section, but Botchon can be uniquely identified by the way it swallows MINERS whole using an intimidating servo arm that drags out and traps MINERs, as well as its ability to play a disruptive game by capturing the enemy team's MINERS and moving them off of their mining squares. Read more about our strategy here.
The Reigning Champion
Botchon won the ME 218b competition. Watch the exciting final match below!
More videos of Botchon can be found here.
More videos of Botchon can be found here.