Rice rookies rock robotics championships

BY MIKE WILLIAMS Rice News staff

In its first year, the Rice Robotics Club went to the big leagues and came away with heads held high.

The student club was formed in the fall with the intention of entering the VEX Robotics World Championships in Dallas the first weekend of May. The goal was to build two remote-controlled robots that work together to stack 3-inch cubes in head-to-head competition against other college teams.

"It was a good experience for our first time there," said Andrew Lynch, a graduate student in mechanical engineering and a club leader. He said the contests, which took place in a 10-by-10-foot ring, were exciting. "You're playing offense, trying to stack your own blocks, but you're also on defense, trying to keep the other team from stacking theirs."

When the dust cleared, Rice was second among the college entries, beating Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico in the quarterfinals and Mount San Antonio College in the semifinals before losing the title bout to Massey University of New Zealand. Rice brought home a trophy for being a finalist and also won the Think Award for creative design.

Team members who attended the competition include Lynch; Chris Lam Jones College; Vic Chin-Wei Hu, Wiess College; Johanan Hsu, Jones College; Cynthia Sung, Jones College; and Jiayi Monika Sun, Jones College. Team members who worked on the robots but did not attend were Dane Powell and Fakhreddine Landolsi, graduate students in mechanical engineering, and Allen Gregory, Sid Richardson College.

The trophies and robots are on display at the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen, where they were built. More photos of the event can be found here, and complete results are here.