Dan Darst, Director of Engineering and Project Management, Karl Frankowski, Senior Graphic and User Interface Designer, and Bob Worrell, President and founder of Worrell, Inc. participated as judges in the 2008 ME2011 ROBOT SHOW held Monday December 8, in the McNamara Alumni Center on the University of Minnesota Minneapolis campus.

208 students in ME2011 Introduction to Engineering designed and constructed their own autonomous, computer-controlled robots. Their charge was to create a machine that “did something interesting”. Other than a few cost, safety and size constraints, the students were free to build whatever they wanted.

The results of their efforts were demonstrated for the judges and public at this show, a major and very fun public event that filled the ground floor of the McNamara Center.  More information about the project and the show is available at www.me.umn.edu/courses/me2011/robot/public.html

As a team, we evaluated 10 machines with the students explaining how they came to make their decisions about what to design and build.  They showed their sketches, electronic schematics, mechanical documentation and a bill of materials. Our team unanimously agreed that Jessica Gilbertson had the most creative and functionally effective device of all the machines we reviewed. Jessica showed us a “Skittles Fountain”.  She cleverly crafted a vertical augur that when rotated, lifted the colorful skittles up the clear tube and deposited them into a funnel and down another clear tube into a hopper that gave us one last little delight as it electronically dumped them into a tray. This all happened in a fixed period of time with no human interference except with the push of a LED button to signal its initiation.  Jessica used some purchased components and some found items to make this fun robot.

For those who have been on the jury before, you know how much fun it is. For those who have not, you’ll have to trust me that it is a tremendous amount of fun. lots and lots of people milling around enjoying the diversity and creativity of our students.