UA Students Build Robot For Competition
By: Stephen Crews
Updated: March 7, 2011
University of
Alabama engineering students will compete in the IEEE SoutheastCon
Hardware competition March 17-20 in Nashville, Tennessee. This
competition, inspired by the 2010 Haiti earthquake, features a course
modeled after a collapsed building.
Each team must build an autonomous robot, meaning it operates on its own without a driver, to navigate four rooms of the course. The robot must identify victims and announce their condition and location in a spoken form.
UA's team will be competing against several teams from the IEEE Southeast region. Last year, UA finished 6thout of about 50 teams. This competition showcases the potential for modern technology to save lives in disaster situations. Robots, like the ones designed for this competition, can produce quick and accurate reports to emergency responders, who can then act more effectively.
The UA student team consists of seven seniors majoring in electrical and computer engineering.
