Students place first at first ever university Robo Sumo competition
Students from the Caledonian Robotics society placed first at a Robot Sumo competition, which took place for the first time this summer.
‘Robo Sumo’ was held in the University of Strathclyde and challenged students from Glasgow Caledonian University and the University of Glasgow to design and produce a functional sumo robot.
The robots were then put to the test in a battle against one another, which involved being placed into a small arena and forcing the other outside the arena’s edges.
The competition, which was scored by the best of three rounds, resulted in Caledonian Robotics Society coming in first place with their robot ‘Spare Parts’.
Now looking ahead, the different societies have made plans to continue the competition and have more universities get involved in the future.
“I’m the President but I’ve just returned from doing an Exchange programme abroad. Last year, one of our lecturers suggested the idea of starting a robotic society. I’m personally very interested in robotics, so I just took the dive and got straight into trying to recruit as many people for it as I could.” Caledonian Robotics Society President Aaron McGlynn explained.
He added: “We gathered a small group initially to get the society going. To start with, we were just coming up with concept ideas, sketches, nothing physical. There was also a lot of paperwork on my end!
We made it through to the ReFreshers’ Fayre, where we were able to recruit some extra members and after that it was time for me to head off to my Exchange programme so I handed over the President role to Stuart. Milosz also took over the role as Vice President during that time so the society kept going while I was away.”
Aaron went on to explain that the competition came together thanks to an idea from the University of Glasgow. He said: “The University of Glasgow actually got in touch with us via the Society page on the GCU Students’ Association website.
They asked about setting up a friendly competition between the universities, and so myself and Aaron went to meet with them to discuss it. We came up with the basic idea of the competition, which included using sumo robots and agreeing that they would all be made within 500g by 10cm.
When organising the competition, they wanted to make sure that all Glasgow-based universities could take part. Society member Milosz Swiatek explained: “We wanted to make sure that we could include the University of Strathclyde, so it could be a showdown between the three Glasgow universities. From that point, we had to plan everything between the universities. This included coming up with the rules, the location, time and place.
It’s the first time a competition like this has ever taken place. The University of Strathclyde did most of the organising thanks to one of their members who had just recently concluded his PhD and had the most experience of hosting something like this. He acted as the main liaison between the universities.”
Vice-President Stuart McKerlie added: “The competition setup involved an arena and then the teams would compete against each other as a tournament. For example, GCU VS UofG and then GCU VS Strathclyde. It wasn’t like a typical ‘Robot War’ but the idea was to see which robots could be pushed out of the arena. There were three rounds per fight and it was scored on the best of three.
It took us about four months to design and build the robot, starting in January and having the robot finished for around June time so students could work on them after exams were finished.”
Society member Kieran Dyer joined the society later into the competition preparation, but wanted to use his knowledge to mentor and help the others. He said: “I only joined the society in Trimester B, so at that point the members did a lot of the research and development of the robot. It was definitely a challenge in terms of physically making the robot because we’re all Electrical and Electronic Engineering students.
I knew that having a bit more experience would be useful to for the others, so it gave me the chance to help with the final stages of the development.”
Milosz added: “After the recent competition, we actually had other universities reach out to express their interest in getting involved in the future. The plan is to make it an annual or bi-annual event and host it at different universities. Hopefully next time it will be our turn!
Now looking back, the society are pleased to have reached such a positive outcome. Stuart explained: “
We’re very happy! We had some last minute issues the night before the competition where our sensors broke, but luckily we were able to come up with a solution.”
Kieran added: “All of the universities have uploaded video files from the competition, so we can watch them back and actually see what the other teams did with their robots. This will help us make changes to our own and hopefully improve it for the next time we compete.”
Find out more about the Caledonian Robotics Society on the GCU Students’ Association website and on their Instagram page
By Rachael McAlonan
Got a SCEBE or GSBS story? Email me at Rachael.McAlonan@gcu.ac.uk or connect with me on social media here