Super Robo Time 2020

This past month, we held our annual Super Robo Time. Super Robo Time (SRT) is an annual event held by the Robotics Team, UAS, and 3D Print Club and is a chance for old, new, and potential members to learn.

Due to COVID-19, SRT was a bit different this year than normal. The project for this year was to build a small demo robot from a provided kit of parts. The kit of parts included sensors, DC motors, a servo, RGB lights, and an Arduino with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities.

On Saturdays during SRT, we held workshops to teach skills relating to building the bots. The first workshop was an introduction to Fusion 360. During this, participants learned some of the basics of Fusion 360 and walked through modeling a couple of custom parts for their bots. These parts were then 3D printed and added to the participant’s kit of parts. The other workday was an electrical and programming workshop to teach about some of the common robot components such as Arduinos, sensors, and actuators. We also showed how to use the Arduino IDE to write code to control their bots.

Participants constructed their bots over the span of 3-4 weeks on workdays that were spread throughout the week. The participants assembled the mechanical parts, mounted and wired the electrical components, and programmed the bots. We provided basic code to get the bots running, but members were encouraged to modify the code to add additional features.

The demo code provided for the bots allowed them to be controlled by an app on a phone through wireless communications. This was the basic challenge, but an additional list of challenges were provided to encourage the participants to write their own code to accomplish specific objectives.

Even though SRT looked a bit different this year, we still had a lot of fun and hopefully helped the participants to learn some stuff. Big thanks to everyone who worked hard to make SRT a success once again this year!