The robotics team from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville took second place at the International Beyond Botball competition held in Leesburg Virginia. This marks the third occasion the team has met their rivals, Lockheed Martin, in the finals of the double elimination round.

The competition this year involved saving the real estate market. To do this the robots must: release the flood of government assets (yellow golf balls), remove the toxic mortgages (orange poms), and build new homes (green cylinders). The game is played on four 4x4 pieces of poly with ramps and scoring zones for each of the real estate objects. The more difficult pieces and locations represent a higher total score.

The team built, programmed, and tested two autonomous robots for this competition, named When and What. They are mobile robots, both using wheels to move about the arena and they use arms with a grippers to move objects about the arena. When is the latest addition to the robot crew, built using an iRobot Create platform and a LynxMotion 5 degree of freedom arm. A miniature laptop, or netbook, was used to program and control the robot. What was a robot used previously that was bolstered and reprogrammed to perform a different task. During the competition both robots performed without any human influence, relying purely on input from sensors like cameras, touch, and SONAR. The teams main strategy was to have When release the government funds while the other robot, What, went to the opposing teams side and stole their houses. This proved to be an effective strategy for taking points from the other team as well as implementing blocking strategy.

Team members included Aaron Parker, Rob Long, John Marriott, and Dr. Jerry Weinberg. Aaron, who just completed his freshman year in computer science, began working with robots in high school at Edwardsville High participating in the Botball program, he plans to continue working with robots throughout his academic career. Rob is a graduate student in computer science and drew from his robust professional experience working with industrial robots. John Marriott is completing his graduate education in mathematics and has experience coaching Botball robotics teams. Dr. Jerry Weinberg, Chairman of the Computer Science Department, has vast experience in robot design, implementation, and education. This is the third team he has led to a Beyond Botball competition and he also supports the Botball program as an instructor. Congratulations team!