top of page

ROBOTICS & DESIGN

Overview

MIT 2.007 Design and Manufacturing I is an undergraduate class in the Department of Mechanical Engineering that develops students’ competence and self-confidence as design engineers. It emphasizes the creative design process and the application of physical laws. As is the tradition, the class ends in a final robot competition, in which students compete against each other to see whose robot can win the most total points.

​

The game field for the 2020 final competition can be seen below. Each full round of play is two minutes long, and comprises an initial 30s autonomous period that automatically rolls into the 90s “regular” RC period. There are some design requirements such as making a robot no big than a 16"x 16" cube, use only materials and components from the kit given to students in lab, total stored energy may not exceed 30kJ, etc.

​

arena.png

Scoring Opportunities:

There are several scoring opportunities in this game:

​

  1. Square Peg in Round Hole: Be the first player to place their square peg in their round hole for points and to release balls to the game table.

  2. Ball Collection: Collect balls and place them into designated areas or into the Pachinko game board.

  3. Beaver Lift Challenge: Lift the column beavers for points, which will also release additional balls into the Pachinko board.

  4. Flower Spin challenge: Spin the disk, which also will release balls into the Pachinko board.

  5. Massachusetts Avenue Crosswalk Multiplier: Pull the street light at the Mass Ave crosswalk

Sadly, during 2020 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the class had to go virtual and students had to make their entire robot in SolidWorks, while still making all the calculations needed to find the best motors, the energy needed to power the robot, find the center of mass to avoid flipping, etc. 

 

I personally wanted to take advantage of this incredible class and so I also did all the electronics and programming that my robot needed in order to perform during the autonomous period. 

measure7arms.png
Robot Design

Robot Design

Watch Now

​

  • Prototyping

  • Iterating: testing different concepts for the same strategy,

  • Making a product in real life is most likely not going to work initially as well as SolidWorks might make it look like.

  • Being patient, creative, persistent, and innovative gives you good results.

 

I am looking forward to building my robot as soon as MIT reopens and I have access to the amazing machine shops we have in there. Stay tuned for the final result!!!!!

Lessons Learned

bottom of page