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SALT LAKE CITY — It was 3 a.m. the night before an annual engineering conference and college students Phillip Barker and Kaylee Dudek — along with their teammates — were in their hotel room taking a hacksaw to their robot.
"I'm sure our neighbors were just thrilled," Barker said with a chuckle.
Barker, Dudek and their teammates — all wearing the same matching baby blue button-ups — traveled from New Philadelphia, Ohio, to Salt Lake City for the 125th annual American Society for Engineering Education conference. For the past 20 years of the conference, college students go head to head to determine who has the smartest, most effective autonomous robot.
"We cover two-year schools, as well as the first two years at four-year schools," said Philip Regalbuto, an engineering instructor and chairman of the competition's division.
This year, "since we're in the Beehive State," Regalbuto said, the robots act as bees transporting honey to the hive. The robots needed to pick up 13 yellow and white ping pong balls (honey) and transport them to the correct slot (hive) that corresponds with the ball's color. Once the robot was on the table, it was on its own, it could receive no direction or guidance from their human creators.
Barker and Dudek, students of Kent State University at Tuscarawas, were cutting down parts of their robot the night before to fit the specific size dimensions required for the competition. Dudek said the team had to stop at Walmart the night before to pick up the hacksaw.
"We ripped it apart and started fresh," Barker said.
Their robot was arguably the most eccentric, a small, wheeled box with a tape measure that sprung out and tried, but failed, to push the balls towards its "mouth."
No matter how many revisions Barker and Dudek made, before and during the competition, their robot ended up in second-to-last place. Its fate befell a few other robots, getting lost and stuck against a wall.
Nearly every team used small sensors — resembling computer chips — to tell where they were on the table and what colors the balls were. Months of preparation were required to design and build the different components of the robots.
Ten teams from nine schools participated in the competition — most from the East Coast and with team names that matched the Utah bee theme. There is no monetary reward for the best robots, only a plaque and a greater ability to get their foot in the door.
Judges walked the perimeter of the competition table to time the challenge and make sure everything was up to snuff. While this robot competition did not include any physical battles, the reactions from the crowd and participants matched that of any high-stakes tournament.
Cheers and applause when a robot completed the rare act of a perfect score.
Sighs and gasps when the robot lost a ball over the side of the table, losing a chance for a comeback.
"Team Bumble Bee" from Tidewater Community College at Virginia Beach, won first place at the end of the competition's four rounds. Their robot, nearly completely 3D-printed, used compressed air to suck up and sort the balls into the correct slots with an audible hiss. Each team's robot ranged in a range from "sleek" to "held together by hot glue."
Bumble Bee was certainly on the sleeker end.
Ramil Almojuela and Chris Gollogly stepped behind a maze of curtains to refill the air canister before their final timed trial. Unlike some other teams that may need to make adjustments behind the scenes, using hot glue or even a hacksaw, Bumble Bee's creators only had to add air.
"We find it most optimal around 2,000 (psi)," Gollogly said as he refilled the canister with a larger air tank.
"Pretty much, we just created a vacuum with high-pressure air," Almojuela said.
To Gollogly and Almojuela, having this competition on his resume means he could be one step closer to working at NASA or Tesla.
"I would like to be anywhere with robotic manufacturing — especially Tesla," Almojuela said.
The two mechanical engineering students built the robot together over the past 10 months, combining ideas from their two original designs into one robot.
"We've had a great experience this whole time," Gollogly said. "We work well together, so if we do have a bad experience, or something's going wrong, either he has a solution or I have a solution."
"He's the hardware, I'm the software," Almojuela said.
Competitors cannot spend over $400 for the parts used in building their robots but according to Andrew Fretwell and his team, money doesn't necessarily mean victory.
"We estimated about $35," Michael Fernandez said of their robot, Buzz. "Because a lot of it was recycled from previous projects."
"Maybe $40 if you include shipping," Fretwell adds.
Their two-armed robot, which also acted as a vacuum, had colors ranging from blue, purple and orange. Their robot was not meant to look pretty, it was meant to win.
Fretwell, along with his teammates from Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio, earned second place.
"It feels good," Fretwell said. "It's been a long year of hard work."
