These Are The Droids You are Looking For

18 Dec These Are The Droids You are Looking For

Upon the unveiling of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens this week, Axiom had the opportunity to get a firsthand view on a robotics competition on Monday.  A variety of professionals from prominent companies in the Twin Cities—including Axiom’s very own Rob Beachy—had the privilege to judge the annual Mechanical Engineering Robot Show at the McNamara Center on the University of Minnesota’s East Bank campus. This is the largest collection of robots displayed in one place in the Twin Cities, and as evidenced by the crowd, it was fun for kids of all ages.

Although no student was able to craft a robot up to C3PO’s standards, over 200 college students participated in the competition to design and build their own robot that “does something useful.”

The students were given the following prompt: “After pushing the robot’s start button, your machine must do something useful for 45 seconds or longer, after which it must be ready to do the same thing over again.”

There were many restrictions on size and cost, but there were no restrictions on creativity or imagination—and it showed!

Engineers, scientists, project managers, marketing professionals and a variety of judges from companies including Toro, Honeywell, Boston Scientific, Medtronic, National Instruments and several others comprised the scores of three-person judging teams who awarded prizes to the top performers.

We highly recommend anyone interested in robotics, science or engineering to attend this event, as well as to get involved with “First Robotics.” Many of the mechanical engineering student-competitors at this year’s event had a start in “First,” which was evident in the quality and originality of their designs. If you have kids in K-12 grade, “First” provides programs that can educate and prepare your kids for future involvement in science, engineering and advanced technology. Remember, we always need mentors, and this program is a great way to help encourage upcoming generations to get educated in these important fields.