SIUE Hosts 2019 Botball Tournament
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville is hosting nine teams for the 17th annual Greater St. Louis Botball Tournament to be held Saturday, April 13 in the activity gym at the SIUE Student Fitness Center.
The theme this year is medical response, and the specific tasks have to do with locating injured cubes and bringing them to toy ambulances.
The teams have been equipped with hundreds of parts such as sensors, motors and structural pieces. Students are free to be as inventive with the components as possible. The game board is set on an 8’ x 8’ table, with various PVC and material components. The result is a fleet of unique robots that allow the students to see the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches, especially in head-to-head competition.
Members of SIUE’s Autonomous Robotics Club (ARC) student organization will be volunteering their time to help.
Per the organization’s website, the Botball curriculum is aligned with Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards.
Botball is coordinated through the KISS Institute for Practical Robotics. The tournament event pits teams against one another in two-minute rounds. A team’s student-created robot must demonstrate its ability to perform a number of tasks worth varying points. The regional competition is open to the public and typically draws approximately 200 spectators with teams from Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Kansas and Arkansas.
Photo: Spectators watch the annual Botball Tournament at SIUE.
