Imagine standing in the middle of a white sandy beach stretching all the way to the end on both sides of you. You feel the soft sand pressing against the soles of your feet, threatening to drown your feet in it. You look across the sea as the blazing sun rises above the horizon, painting both the sky and the sea with different shades of orange and pink. You then take in a breath of salty seawater air while the gentle breeze blows through your clothes and takes with it all worries of life.
#soeffahsogood
Now imagine being abruptly awakened by the sounds of hammering and the smell of scalding hot solder…Wait, there’s another familiar scent as well. Something burning. A Domino? Amino? Ar..? You hold that thought as a ray of sunshine falls on to your face. You look to see the sun rise once again but this time through a glass window. As you watch the sun glare at you, a shiver goes down your spine. You realise the AC is on full blast and you finally remember where you are.
At USMC’s very own beach.
Welcome readers, to the Part 2 Mechanical Engineering Systems Design & Computing Module Semester 2 Assignment – The Eurobot Project. With this year’s theme being ‘The Beach Bots’ (yet again), you can look forward to pun-tastic team and rowbot names.
The Eurobot project requires students to design, manufacture and program a robot (or two) to compete in the USMC Eurobot competition. The robots will have to carry out several predetermined tasks during a match between two teams to earn points.
We were given 4 months to complete this project and I’d have to say, it was a grueling yet exciting period of time (Yes, it’s possible to feel them both at once).
Well, the university did promise us a “unique ‘Southampton’ education experience.”
Now then, I shell skip the joys and sorrows my team went through during the manufacturing process of our robot and dive straight into the competition.
Tension was in the air as the matches were played one after another. Each match kept everyone on their toes and even I thought my heart was going to burst during the first match even though it wasn’t my team competing.
Unfortunately, one robot was missing from the competition. My team’s robot, Beachrover, had a breakdown just before the competition and we were not able to fix it in time. As the show must go on, the competition started without us and we had to forfeit all of our matches.
Congratulations to everyone on a job well done and to the winning team, for winning. Huge thanks to Dr. Pu, Dr. Joe, Amin and Karim for all the help along the way.
Carrying out this project had been a huge learning process for all of us and whatever we had gain from this would most definitely help us in our 3rd and 4th year projects.
One thing I would like to tell our juniors or anyone who has yet to undertake a somewhat huge project (ours is considered tiny) is that time management can really make or break a project. Hence, make sure you plan your project well and actually follow it through.