MAE 3 Robot Contest

Fall 2011

Alien Engineering Robot Contest

Alien Engineer with a T Square as drawn by MAE3 tutor Brian Miller

Contest Description

Alien engineers have a hard job. Not only do they need to ensure that their spaceships work reliably, but they have to design apparatus to abduct unsuspecting humans and perform important research operations on them. A recent scouting expedition has intercepted an earthling transmission rating the coolest educational institutions on the planet. One has been noted to have exceptional specimens for our research, UC San Diego. Your task will be to design a machine for your alien brethren to help abduct UCSD students and their leaders and transport them back to your mothership.  Your commander has pitted two alien engineering teams against each other to see whose design can abduct more human specimens.  Your alien design skills will be rated in an introductory design course, MAE3, where a model has been created of the expected operating conditions at UCSD. In this contest, your mothership will land on campus in a designated Starting Area (A or B), and your goal is to abduct as many students as possible. Unsuspecting UCSD students are scattered around campus, and a VIP has been spotted in a central location. Based upon your early physics coursework and study of spherical cows, you have decided to model humans as spheres. A schematic of your operating field is shown in the figure below.

Contest Playing Field

See Complete Contest Description for more details.

Robot Contest Results from December 7, 2011

Winning Team:

Charlie Sheen (Team 14)

Runner Ups:

Shakespeare (Team 6)

Team Tostitos (Team 43)

Student Robot Descriptions: