The car park at the Students Culture Zone will
see a competition of autonomous and remotely controlled cars. They will fight
in a race, as well as present themselves before the jury. This is the first
competition of this type in Poland but the organizers want to turn it into a
cyclic event.
“We came to
the conclusion that we need such an event to allow students and other designers
of autonomous vehicles to show their robots and make them compete. I’m sure
that at each Polish university there is a scientific circle or individual
students who make such cars. It is worth giving them an opportunity to present
their achievements.” – says Marcin
Twardak from the “Synergia” Inter-faculty Scientific Circle of
Mechatronics.
The
competition will be held on 5th July. It will be organized at the Students
Culture Zone car park – on a ca. 2 metres wide concrete track, flanked with OSB
boards. The vehicles will compete in three categories (provided that there will
be a sufficient number of vehicles in each of them):
• RC-Standard:
only for RC vehicles that are mass-produced or based on standard parts
available on the model building market, not modified by the team. The category
will be divided into sub-categories, depending on scale and type of vehicles.
• Mobile-Open:
for vehicles built entirely by the teams, both remotely controlled and
autonomous. The vehicles, however, have to meet two requirements: they must be
not larger than 600 x 800 mm
(half of a EUR-pallet) and travel a distance of 10 metres with a load of 2,3 kg.
• Robo-Drift:
for vehicles self-designed and self-built by the teams (both remotely
controlled and autonomous) with a running gear consisting of two axles,
including the front steering axle. The vehicle should be based on the structure
of a car. This might be the most difficult category, as it requires designing a
high-quality structure, including sensors and control devices that will allow
the vehicle to travel and go through corners in a drift.
The
vehicles can participate either in the time race (“time attack”) or in the
competition where their performance will be assessed by a jury (“freestyle”).
The jury will take into account the creativity and imagination of the designers
and the solutions applied by them.
“We are not expecting
a large number of vehicles, as this is the first competition we are
organizing.” – emphasizes Marcin Twardak – “But we are not discouraged, as
usually first events are rather an internal rivalry. But the consecutive
editions usually attract more teams from other universities as they start to
believe it’s worth taking part in the competition.”
The list of
participants will certainly include members of the “Synergia” scientific circle
with their vehicles, as well as individual students who build their own cars
e.g. as part of their classes in mechatronic systems designing, conducted by
Jarosław Szrek, DSc, mentor of the “Synergia” circle.
In
organizing the event, “Synergia” cooperates with the “Progresja” Association
for the Development of Culture and Science. Detailed information about the
competition is available here.
“Synergia” is a scientific circle that gathers ca. 50
students from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, the Faculty of Electrical
Engineering, and the Faculty of Microsystems Electronics and Photonics. They
have access to the cutting-edge Laboratory of Mechatronic Systems L-7 in the
B-5 building. They design and build various structures according to their ideas
and demonstrate them at presentations promoting mechatronics – both at the
University and elsewhere.
One of the
most famous designs by “Synergia” is the Ginger Picker, a robot with a
characteristic gripper.
Yt
and IRB
Sudoku Solver – a robot that can solve Sudoku (in the video you can see the
robot learn Sudoku and then solve this mathematical puzzle on its own)
Yt2
Yt3
lucy
Translation: Dariusz
Więcławski