A group of four fifth-year electromechanical engineering students placed first in the 2009 American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Student Design Competition.
Dan Koss, Steve Mackey, William Watling, and Devin Wells participated in the competition, which was held on April 18 at Tufts University. A second team from Wentworth, which was made up of David Browne, Dan Holzer, Vanessa Masse, Chris Thongkham, and Thomas Williams, competed and came in fourth place.
The robots were designed and built in the context of a senior design course taught by Associate Professor Loutfallah Chedid in the Spring 2009 semester. The competition was inspired by the spectacular success of the Phoenix Mars Lander’s space exploration vehicle. The goal of the competition was to build a robot that could navigate through an obstacle course, climb over a piece of wood, and collect rocks, returning them to a designated target location.
The students’ design won first place for their district and will now go to the finals in Orlando, Fla., in November. The winners of the finals in Florida will receive $3,000, and the ASME student chapter from the winners’ institution will be awarded $1,000.
