During our design and testing process, my group came to the conclusion that a high torque robot with a ramp on the front was the most effective design. We tried a variety of designs and gear ratios, such as a robot with a massive wrecking ball- scrapped due to ineffectiveness- and a robot with a motorized flipper arm out front- scrapped due to robot weakness- before eventually deciding on our ramp design.

We tested out two different gear ratios for our sumo robot, the first being a high torque, low speed ratio, and the second being a slightly less torque, slightly higher speed ratio. The first gear ratio (8:40) was theoretically capable of 8.6 cm/s, and in testing conducted by measuring how long it took the robot to travel 50 cm at max speed, we found a max speed of 6.3 cm/s. Our second gear ratio (16:36) was theoretically capable of 14.4 cm/s with a max measured speed of 9.9 cm/s.

After our design and testing process, my group put our robot design and driving skills to the test against other groups sumo bots in a double elimination tournament. Our robot was able to breeze through most of our competition; however, there were a few other robots that employed similar ramp strategies as us. We matched up with one of these robots in the semifinals and they ended up knocking us out of the bracket. Overall, my group was pleased with our performance in the competition.

In conclusion, my group and I felt that our sumo bot was very successful. Our design was extremely solid and our ramp worked out perfectly. Our robot driving skills and strategy coupled with our robots power enabled us to win the majority of our matches and finish high on the leaderboards. My group also recorded a podcast detailing our project that can be viewed at this link.