The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

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Publications > Brochures > Robojackets | A Georgia Tech Student Organization in the Woodruff School

Robojackets is a Georgia Tech student organization whose purpose is to compete and promote robotics at Georgia Tech. They also give students an added outlet for obtaining skills vital to their education, and add value to the surrounding community through engineering projects involving robotics. The club started in 1999 with a classroom BattleBots competition and has since grown to more than thirty members. Today, the team competes annually in four different events.

The Members

The 30+ active members come from a variety of academic backgrounds. Someone with little or no experience in designing robots can join to learn skills such as CAD, welding, maching, fabrication, circuit design, sonar/radar methodologies, machine vision, program implementation, and software architecture. Members can also polish non-engineering skills such as project management, fundraising, and communication because most competitions require a design report and a presentation.

Aside from the fun of building a robot and working with a group, students gain hands-on experience that many recruiters from major companies look for in a job seekers.

Projects

Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition

The challenge is to design, manufacture, and program an autonomous, unmanned ground robotic vehicle that will negotiate an outdoor obstacle course. The course is littered with barrels, sand traps, ramps, and sidelines.

The yearly competition attracts teams from more than twenty universities; it is organized by the Association of Unmanned Vehicles Systems International and Oakland University, and is sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers and DARPA. Our team is designing, building, and programming a vehicle for the May 2008 competition, which consists of three events: autonomous challenge, GPS navigation challenge, and the presentation and design report.

Battlebots

Battlebots is a combat robotics competition whose goal is to destroy the opponent. Robots must survive axes, maces, saws, spears, and pneumatic hammers in order to win. In the 2007 competition our BattleBots team placed fourth and sustained some damage. The team is building and testing a battlebot-type robot for a competition later this year.

RoboCup

Georgia Tech's RoboCup team was started in 2006 and competed in the 2007 RoboCup event which was hosted by Georgia Tech. They are currently making preparations for the 2008 event in China. The team competes in the small-sized league of RoboCup. The gam pits two teams of 5 coffee can sized robots competing head to head in a game of soccer. The robots use wireless communication to talk to the central computer that directs their motion and tracks their movements through the use of two overhead cameras.

Independent Projects

In addition to the four competition teams available to our members, the RoboJackets allows individuals to take on independent projects as funding allows. At present there are two independent projects and a down hill derby that our members work on. The Inverse Kinematic Arm is aimed at exploring control algorithms for implementing inverse kinematic control. While the HexaPod is geared to developing a small scale advanced 6 legged stabe walking robot complete.

U.S. FIRST

FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is an organization whose goal is to increase interest in science and engineering in high school, middle school, and elementary school students. Each year they develop and host a robotics competition for high schools around the country and the world. The high schools pair with sponsors to design and build a 120 lb. robot to compete in that year's game. These robots then compete in regional and if they qualify the international championship. This will be RoboJacket's eighth year of involvement as mentors to local high schools.

TE Sessions

RoboJackets also host Technology Enrichment Sessions to local high school teams with the goal of preparing them for the FIRST competition. The program focuses on teaching organizational skills, engineering methodology, programming, and conceptual design along with numerous hands-on activities.