Southampton engineering students win UK Eurobot final
The theme for this year's Eurobot event was 'Robots on the Beach' and the event itself was held at Middlesex University's Hendon Campus in London on 21 April.
The Southampton team, four second-year engineering students, Mitchell Buxton, Hugh Ward, Ben Brooks and Song Zheng; had to design, build and programme robots to compete against teams from several other UK universities and international teams from France and Germany.
The winning Southampton robot consistently scored 80-90 points in every one of its ninety second matches, using various devices to push objects, as well as collecting items using permanent magnets mounted on an actuated door assembly.
Rapid Electronics, who sponsored the event, presented the team with a trophy, plus £200 prize money. The victorious four will go forward as UK rpresentatives at the international finals of Eurobot, in Paris in June to compete against the best teams from across the globe.
This is the third year that Southampton teams have entered Eurobot, and the third year that we have come first. This emphasises the quality of our Mechanical and Aerospace students, who beat one of the best German teams in the final
I absolutely loved working on this project as not often do you get to compete with your peers within the academic environment. It was just so rewarding to see the hard work pay off when the robot you have made is consistently performing well. I was nervous travelling to the event as I knew we could do well but anything could have gone wrong on the day. I think the Eurobot project is a brilliant opportunity for any engineer as it is what engineering is all about, having a set of problems and finding solutions for them