2 Northville Teams Win at Robofest World Championship

- Submitted by Lawrence Technical University

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. – The NCA Lights robotics team of Northville won the Junior Game division and the All 2 JESUS team of Northville won the Hexapod Robo Sumo division at the 13th annual Robofest World Championship held at Lawrence Technological University on May 19.

This year 1,630 students on 502 teams from nine states and four other countries participated in the annual Robofest competition founded in 2000 by CJ Chung, professor of computer science at Lawrence Tech.

Robofest is an international competition of autonomous robots – computer-programmed to act independently and not radio-controlled – that encourages students to have fun while learning principles of science, technology, engineering, and math. Students design, construct and program the robots, and adult coaches are not allowed to assist during the events. Teams compete in the junior division (grades 5-9) or senior division (grades 9-12), using a variety of computer programming languages.

In this year’s competition game, a rescue robot had to circumnavigate a rectangular platform, grab silver balls on top of towers and then deliver the rescued balls to the “hospital,” a black box on one end of the platform. During the mission, the robot had to measure the distance between tower buildings and report it in millimeters.

In hexapod sumo, the teams had to program and build Bioloid Premium robots to follow a line, knock over a water bottle, climb onto an octagon-shaped ring, and knock the other robot off the table.

Lawrence Technological University, www.ltu.edu, was founded in 1932. Bloomberg BusinessWeek lists Lawrence Tech among the nation’s top 25 percent of universities for return on undergraduate tuition investment, and highest in the Detroit metropolitan area.  Lawrence Tech is also listed in the top tier of Midwestern universities by U.S. News and World Report and the Princeton Review. Students benefit from small class sizes and experienced faculty who provide a real-world, hands-on, “theory and practice” education with an emphasis on leadership. Activities on Lawrence Tech’s 102-acre campus include over 60 student clubs and organizations and a growing roster of NAIA varsity sports.