On Tuesday, April 23 and Thursday, April 25, students in CSCE 236: Embedded Systems had a final competition, displaying what they learned this semester, which involved programming robots and interfacing with sensors and motors to compete in a modified capture the flag tournament.
In the competition the students competed against other teams to be the first to get to the opposite exit in the course. The students had a variety of sensors such as bump, line detectors, and range finders that they used to detect walls, lines, other robots, and obstacles placed at unknown locations. The students had to use the skills they developed over the course of the semester to program their Arduino-based robots to autonomously perform this task.
The tournament was held as a double elimination tournament with the winner of each match needing to win two out of three runs against their opponent. Referees watched over the competitions, with the winners going on to the next round. Team "Circuit Breakers" won the overall competition and was comprised of Kyle Mendyk, Nick Filipi, and Travis Sweetser.
Dr. Carrick Detweiler, the course instructor, oversaw the competition and kept track of the winners on a projection at the front of the room. After the tournament, the students gave presentations discussing their overall strategy and hardware and software architecture.
For more information about the course, please contact Dr. Carrick Detweiler at carrick@cse.unl.edu or see the course website http://cse.unl.edu/~carrick/courses/2013/236/index.html.