These are my recollections of Design Competition (DC) from the start to the present. I’m certain that I have made some mistakes in the details, and hope that this will become a living document, with additions and corrections continuously made as DC moves into the future.
- A. Sahakian
The Northwestern University (NU) Design Competition (DC) started in academic year 1991-92. At the time I was still a junior faculty member, and Professor Allen Taflove and I were both very active with ECE-related student groups, he as the advisor of Eta Kappa Nu (HKN), the EE Honors Society and I as the advisor of the IEEE. Professor Taflove saw the potential to increase the visibility of McCormick through such an activity. At various points HKN, Tau Beta Pi (TBP), IEEE, and perhaps all the other student groups in McCormick, have been involved. Although we have always been co-listed as advisors to DC, Prof. Taflove has been the “prime mover” and I have simply helped. I offer some memories of DC’s past below.
The first DC was to be a celebration of Earth Day ‘92. The idea for this theme came from Ms Lynn Slavik, then a senior in EE and the IEEE student Branch President. We settled on the theme of Recycling Machines, and defined the challenge as designing a machine which could identify and sort any of the following recyclable items: an aluminum soda can, a wad of aluminum foil, a Styrofoam cup, a glass bottle or a wadded-up clump of paper. The item was dropped into the machine which then would identify it and place it into the appropriate recycling container. There were two finalists, both with very clever and effective designs. We held the competition indoors, in one of the large Tech. lecture rooms (I think it was LR2).
The next year (1992-93) we maintained the theme but broadened the challenge to design an autonomous machine which would seek out and sort recyclable items which were scattered on the ground. This extension added a new dimension to the challenge: mobility. The entries included a super-sophisticated machine with video cameras and image-processing and recognition capabilities designed by Chris Bachman, who is now one of the ECE computer support gurus. Unfortunately his entry “lost some smoke” on the day of the competition and didn’t compete. The winning entry, “Deranger,” was designed by Jerry Mahler and his team. The name undoubtedly was a modification of the name “Ranger,” a product which Jerry worked on while a coop student at Rauland Borg in Skokie. Rauland Borg has long been a supporter of McCormick and the DC, and may even have the original Deranger somewhere in their storage.
As an aside, it became a tradition for the winning team to help lead the organization of the following year’s competition. In fact, this was a longer-term competition, with each DC board trying to outdo the previous.
The following year (1993-94) the theme was “American Gladiators,” which was then a popular TV show. The robots were presented a set of challenges from which they could select, and radio control was allowed. These challenges included crossing a tightrope, a wall or fence, a water tank, stairs and a sand pit. Most entrants selected a subset of the challenges. I remember some of these gifted students, for example Benjamin (Matt) Banner, then a freshman, who had designed a multi-legged robot which crossed the stairs and wall by elevating, and then dropping and raising legs in sequence. Aside from Jerry, the competition was organized by some of our other very successful students: Jaxon Lang, Mark Bivens, and Mike McFarland.
Both the 1992-93 and 1993-94 competitions were held in the basketball-court area of the north campus dorms, which is now being excavated as the site for the new Slivka Residential College. The University began to raise security and insurance concerns about having a crowd of spectators for a DC held on campus. We were faced with either paying enormous cost to resolve these concerns or moving DC off campus. Garrett Evangelical Seminary, just North of Tech. came to our rescue, offering their northwest lawn. We should always remember and thank them for this generous accommodation, which continues even today.
Each DC board expanded the competition. Students became more organized at getting financial support from donors. The courses became more complex and cleverer. The number of participants increased. The facilities for the audience were improved. Since the DC organizing committee was itself involved in a major design task, they were offered the opportunity to gain independent study credit for their efforts.
The 1994-95 competition involved a large square painted wooden course, a general format which was repeated for many years since. Much like the current (2000-2001) competition, there were white lines painted on the course which robots could track optically. The goal was to collect and deposit balls.
The 1995-96 DC had the theme “King of the Hill.” ECE undergrad Chris Swider (who later returned to NU as a graduate student) was the general chair. The idea was for autonomous robots to collect balls and get to the top of a small hill. This was a head-to-head competition. The winning entry, designed by Tony Fischer, put on a spectacular show at the final round when it stood at the top of the hill with its ball-collecting arm slowly rotating and, actually by accident, pushed its competitor away from the top. One memorable entry, designed by Matt Banner and friends, earned its name “Flying Diodes” during a practice session when it went out of control, motors at full speed, overheating its controller and smashing into a wall. The motor controller circuit board had gotten so hot that the solder on some diodes melted and they flew off, complete with molten solder, on impact.
What I remember of the 1996-97 DC are the amazing Board members Karen Yeh, and Hiroshi Noguchi, the annoying music of the Spice Girls, and very cold weather. Karen Yeh and Chris Swider were featured in a newspaper article about students whose careers we should watch. Both have done well.
A somewhat unexpected complication appeared after the 1996-97 DC. Then Dean of McCormick, Dr. Jerome B. Cohen, had apparently expressed earlier his dislike for adversarial competitions, but we had not heard this clearly enough. He let us know that if we expected his support we would have to keep the robots away from each other. Ever since this the competition has been a “non-contact” event. Sadly, Dean Cohen died unexpectedly in 1999, after his administrative term had ended and Dean Birge was recruited. Jerry Cohen was looking forward to returning to his teaching, at which he was gifted. We all miss him.
The 1997-98 competition was a parallel race through a set of obstacles, including a pit full of marbles, rotating turntables, treadmills and maze-like tunnels. It was non-contact, but robots could activate obstacles to slow their opponent, including a gate and a backward-moving treadmill. This was certainly the most complex course to date, and much of the credit for its design must go to Jason Ng and his crew. In the end a highly-unconventional and totally-unanticipated entry almost won. This was based on an unrolling flexible tube (much like a party favor) which was powered by compressed air. It simply unrolled to the finish line. If it had not been for a slight mis-aiming in the final round it certainly would have won.
Not to be outdone, the 1998-99 DC once again involved a highly-automated course. Operation KBEMTDRG (the Kinetic Bipolar Electromagnetic Transducer Death Ray Gun) included sliding doors, optical sensors, and many other complications. I did not know until well after the competition that it was also our first course to include truly intelligent controllers. Apparently, on the day of the competition there was a failure of a microcontroller board and one of the exec. board students took up a position under the course to activate a sliding door when a sensor activated. Doug Wilson and his colleagues designed the very complex course.
The most-recent DC, 1999-2000 was chaired by Cuong Pham and friends. My most vivid recollection was actually of Cuong, who I had hosted in my research lab that year. As far as I could tell, Cuong’s diet consisted only of Pepsi, pastries and candy, and he never had to sleep. We must investigate his metabolism to harness it for the benefit of all of mankind… The 1999-2000 winning team was actually a runner-up at the 1998-99 DC: Big Red Tool (now called Bigger Red Tool), consisting of Alina Laurie, Jason Waugh, and Nader Sahar. These were all students living in Lindgren Residential College of Science and Engineering, at which I was then Master, and I knew all of them well.
One persistent difficulty of DC’s is how to accommodate the course in Tech. so that students can test their entries before the event. We were very fortunate to have a room in the “ground” level on the southwest side. (This has since been re-allocated, and the full story will have to wait until this DC is over.) The DC-2000 course was somewhat straightforward, without any electronics or mechanisms, and the competition went off without a hitch. Perhaps we should take this as a lesson for future DC’s.
Our 2000-2001 DC is still in preparation, and based on what I’ve observed of the student board, it will definitely be the best ever. I’m looking forward to the event.