Moraine Park’s Integrated Manufacturing Classes are required of students in the Mechanical Design, Process Engineering Technology, and Mechatronics programs.  Students in these programs take the course together and work in cross-functional teams to complete a project.  This year’s project was a Techbot competition.  Four teams in the evening class and four teams in the day class built remote-controlled robots to compete against each other by battling in an 8ft x 12ft cage.  Each team designed and built their Techbot from scratch.  Limitations included a $250 budget and a 15-pound weight limit.

Preliminary rounds were on Wednesday, May 4 for the evening class, and Friday, May 6 for the morning class.

Champions of both classes were crowned, and now the final battle for supremacy between these two Techbot champions will take place this Wednesday night (May 11) for ultimate bragging rights.

So which bots have taken down all other challengers so far?

Drum roll please  …

The top bots are Chips Miller for the morning group, and Flippin Awesome for the night group! Congrats to these squads!

Here’s a video look back so far at the tournament …

FIRST ROUND – EVENING

The first Wednesday evening match was Penetrator vs. Magic Smoke.  Neither bot was disabled during the original match, but in overtime, the Penetrator disabled Magic Smoke for the win.

The second Wednesday evening match was BeeFKaM vs Flippin Awesome.  Neither bot was disabled during the original match nor during overtime, and the judges declared Flippin Awesome the winner as BeeFKaM was late getting to the ring for the start of the match.

EVENING CHAMPIONSHIP

In the Evening Championship match, the Penetrator became disabled and Flippin Awesome was the Evening Champion.

FIRST ROUND – MORNING

The first Friday morning match was between Chips Miller and the Breakfast Club.  In a short, but exciting match, the Breakfast Club became disabled and Chips Miller moved on to the Days Championship Match:

In the second Friday morning match, ManBearPig disabled the Problem Child to move on to the Days Championship match.

MORNING CHAMPIONSHIP

In the Days Championship Match, Chips Miller took advantage of ManBearPig when its weapon became lodged in the side of the arena and promptly disabled it in thrilling fashion.

Once again, the Techbots Championship will be decided Wednesday.  The match will start sometime between 6:15 and 6:30 p.m., with a battle of all remaining operational Techbots to follow.

And now that the finals are set, here’s a preview of the two titans set to do battle:

TECHBOT CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL ROUND PREVIEW:

MORNING CHAMPION

ROBOT NAME: CHIPS MILLER

TEAM MEMBERS: Keith Bahrke, Ethan Vetter, Rob Fricke

TEAM NAME: The Whippersnappers

CLASS: Morning

ROBOT FEATURES: 

• A substantial hollow square shaped turning mechanical roller that is made of solid steel.

DESIGN THOUGHTS: 

• Chose the substantial weapon to spin in reverse allowing for possible flipping of opponents bot.
• We needed light weight under 15 lb. max. so we chose the rest of the bot to be made of aluminum instead of steel.

WHAT WAS LEARNED: 

• Most interesting was researching and coming up with designs.
• Most challenging was the redesigning and getting all the parts made and made to fit together properly; especially because the main person who designed it kind of dropped out in the middle of the process.
• We had a competitive design in the beginning to go with, but we chose his because he had made one very similar in another class and everybody in the group really liked the weapon. But we scrambled with help and insight from instructors and found ways to get the bot ready for assembly.

And if you want to get in on the fun and see what career opportunities await you, visitmorainepark.edu/programs for all the details!