Oakland Students Put Robots to the Test in Cornerstone of Engineering Showcase
Engineering students at Northeastern’s Oakland campus demonstrated their robots built for the Cornerstone of Engineering showcase in the project’s final testing stage, where they navigated complex mazes constructed from cardboard.
This article originally appeared on Northeastern Global News. It was published by Kate Rix. Main photo: Students test their robots during the Cornerstone of Engineering showcase on the Oakland campus. Photo by Ruby Wallau for Northeastern University
Robots face phantoms in engineering showcase on Northeastern’s Oakland campus
It was the phantom objects that stumped even the best-performing robots during the Cornerstone of Engineering showcase at Northeastern University’s Oakland campus.
Students recorded progress with their phones as custom-made robots jerked and cruised their way through cardboard mazes, the final stage of the semester’s project. The robot that Sebas-tian Leyko built with partner Aviana Fenton was doing fine until the maze challenge.
“We generally didn’t have any issues until we reached challenge three,” Leyko says. “First we had a turn issue with our robot, and then it saw phantom objects.”
In other words, the tissue box-sized machine made of a small circuit board, wheels and a battery pack came to a halt for no apparent reason.
Over the last six weeks students worked in teams of two to build the robots. Photo by Ruby Wallau for Northeastern University
Glitches like this are to be expected when building a robot from scratch and releasing it into unfamiliar conditions, says Leila Keyvani, associate teaching professor of engineering.
The point of the project is to challenge the small machines that students have made with new twists, turns and obstacles.
“Some robots are inconsistent,” says Keyvani, who taught Cornerstone of Engineering 1 this semester. “But they’ve done a great job with all the little intricacies.”
Other bumps along the way include motors that spin at different rates, fading battery packs and power surges when batteries are replaced.
Over the last six weeks students worked in teams of two to build robots. They put their own spin on designs using the same materials: circuit boards, wires, solderable breadboards, wheels, AA-battery packs and ping pong balls.
That last component acts like a caster wheel so the robot can move left to right. Otherwise students would have to incorporate another set of wheels. But it was proving troublesome for Alp Ayata’s robot on the third maze.
“It’s having a hard time on straightaways,” says Ayata, a bioengineering major from Hoboken, New Jersey. “The ping pong ball causes the robot to swerve a little to the left as it drives,” he says as his robot stalled out for the fourth time. “It gets to that location and it loses its traction.”
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