SIUE hosts teams prepping for 2017 Botball Tournament

EDWARDSVILLE - Southern Illinois University Edwardsville will host 14 teams during the Botball Workshop set for Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 28-29 in the Technology and Management Center (TC) located in University Park on the SIUE campus.

The teams are preparing for the 15th annual Greater St. Louis Botball Tournament to be held Saturday, April 8 in the MUC’s Meridian Ballroom. The workshop is an opportunity for the teams to discuss the rules of this year’s tournament and to learn tips on programming their robots. Members of SIUE’s Autonomous Robotics Club (ARC) student organization will be volunteering their time to help.

“While coding is emphasized in the workshop, the Botball program is all about complex problem solving,” said Gary Mayer, PhD, associate professor of computer science in the SIUE School of Engineering, workshop instructor and regional event organizer. “We want to develop critical thinking skills that can be applied for success in many aspects of their lives.”

Per the organization’s website, the Botball curriculum is aligned with Common Core Math and Next Generation Science standards. Mayer says a number of students who were previously Botball participants now attend the School of Engineering as students.

The theme of this year’s tournament is agriculture. The students are building autonomous robots whose tasks emphasize precision. The robots are tasked with collecting items representing water, fertilizer, and seeds from various storage bins, and sorting and placing them into furrows to effectively grow food. Other missions include line following up ramps to water storage, collecting and stacking hay bales, and helping the cows come home.

The teams receive a kit with hundreds of parts such as sensors, motors and structural pieces. Students are free to be as inventive with the kit components as possible. The result is a fleet of unique robots that allow the students to see the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches, especially in head-to-head competition.

Botball is coordinated through the KISS Institute for Practical Robotics. The tournament event pits teams against one another in two-minute rounds. A team’s student-created robot must demonstrate its ability to perform a number of tasks worth varying points. The regional competition is open to the public and typically draws approximately 200 spectators with teams from Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Kansas and Arkansas.

“The Botball Education Robotics Program is an outlet for creative minds, an opportunity to meet others with similar interests in science and engineering, and a way for the community to get involved with the students’ successes,” Mayer said.

The SIUE School of Engineering offers one of the most comprehensive and affordable engineering programs in the St. Louis region with eight undergraduate degrees, five master’s degrees and two cooperative doctoral programs, all housed in a state-of-the-art facility. Students learn from expert faculty, perform cutting-edge research, and participate in intercollegiate design competitions. Companies in the metropolitan St. Louis area provide students challenging internships and co-op opportunities, which often turn into permanent employment. All undergraduate programs are accredited by their respective accreditation agencies.

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