The Coin Collector
The Competition
This one week long competition required the competitors to devise, design, and construct a robot capable of driving around an arena, picking up flat coins, and placing them in a small slot in an elevated box under a 3 minute time crunch. Out of a total of 7 teams of 4, ours placed 2nd even after a few critical malfunctions in the early rounds.
The Robot
Competition Challenges
Over the course of the week long construction phase, the design and prototype went through several iterations. Because of the thin profile of the coins, a mechanical grabbing mechanism would not have been feasible. Our initial design utilized an electromagnet, but the competition requirements mandated that we construct our own. After spending nearly the entire week prototyping the electromagnet alone, we produced a couple of models capable of lifting a maximum of 3 coins simultaneously. The night before the competition the call was made that the electromagnet would not be competition ready.
The team spent the entire night from 6pm until 8am the following morning designing and implementing a new conveyor based magnet system. While admittedly less interesting than a homemade electromagnet, the conveyor of magnets proved far more reliable. Additionally, the newly designed and 3D printed storage funnel could hold over a dozen coins in between drop off runs.
Robot in Action
Outcome
After 8 rounds of competition, our team placed 2nd overall. Due to the last minute construction of the robot, reliability issues took us out of commission for the first couple of rounds. Significantly stronger performances in the later rounds made up for the lost points and allowed us to overtake our competitors.