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Game Overview and Design Challenge Description
Game Overview and Design Challenge Description
The 2026 ME 218B project competitive challenge is Tilt-A-World: Tip the Seesaw!
The game involves designing and building an autonomous, untethered, steampunk-themed mobile robot that can orient itself, navigate the arena, collect lightweight foam cargo (affectionately referred to as "coal") from dispensers, and strategically deposit cargo into buckets mounted on a row of five seesaws. The game takes place in a 244 cm × 244 cm arena divided into two symmetrical halves by a center wall containing the five seesaws.
To succeed, each robot must autonomously determine which side of the arena it starts on using modulated IR beacons, indicate its side with an electromechanical indicator, and use sensors, actuators, and event-driven bare-metal C software on PIC32 processors to navigate and manipulate game elements. Each match runs 2min 18s. Scores are calculated by the number of seesaws successfully tipped.
Robots must begin within a 32 cm cube, may expand after the round starts, operate fully autonomously on battery power, and stay within a $200 budget. In each match, robots score by tilting the seesaws visibly toward their side (whether it is through loading coal into the bucket or forcefully pushing it down).
General Requirements
General Requirements
Fully autonomous
Be able to determine and electromechanically indicate the side of the arena at the beginning of a game
Indicate when a game round is in progress, which deactivates once time expires
Fit within a 320 mm by 320 mm cube at the beginning, and may expand up to 570 mm in height and 480 mm by 480 mm in length and width during the game
Contain at least one PIC32 SPI leader and one PIC32 SPI follower device
Total budget of $200 per team
Doner Kebab - A competitive robot
Doner Kebab - A competitive robot
Doner Kebab uses 4 main systems to complete this game:
Driving. Moves around the map using 2 Igarashi 33GN2732 high-torque, low-speed DC gearhead motors.
Intaking. Collects the cargo using 2 DC motors with toy car wheels attached at the ends rapidly spinning like flywheels to pull the cargo into the storage section.
Dispensing. Lifts the cargo from the storage section one piece at a time to drop it in the buckets. It's active with an agitator in the storage section that prevents jamming.
Bucket Lowering. Brings the buckets to accesible drop range from the dispensing mechanism by using 2 servo motors like an arm.
Demos:
IntakePickup.mp4Page updated
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