WKU News

A team from Spencer County High School won the WKU Department of Engineering’s 15^th annual Kentucky Bluegrass Robotics Competition on Nov. 8. Teams from Hart County and Barren County finished second and third.

This WKU Engineering Department outreach competition provides secondary school students with a challenging engineering design problem to solve and provides secondary school faculty and mentors with an interesting team project to use as an example of engineering principles.

Eight teams from high schools across Kentucky were able to achieve the project goals, with well over 100 students, coaches and supporters filling the WKU Engineering and Biological Sciences McConnell lab. The 2014 “Robots for Relief” competition required each team to build a robot using nearly $1,000 worth of motors, controls and construction materials provided by WKU.

The robots had to be capable of helping relief workers in a simulated natural disaster scenario. The robots had to carry and deposit as much rice as possible in 5 minutes up a ramp, across gravel and then up stairs, when remotely operated by the students. The teams were also judged on the quality of their device documentation and the cost effectiveness of their devices.

WKU Engineering faculty Morteza Nurcheshmeh, Julie Ellis and Kevin Schmaltz, and Engineering Department staff engineers Troy Robertson and Ron Rizzo provided assistance with preparations and game day support for the event. Numerous WKU engineering students helping to build the “relief area,” set up for and judge the event, and feed the participants.

 

WKU Department of Engineering’s 15th annual Kentucky Bluegrass Robotics Competition

Contact: John Inman, (270) 745-3048.