One of the core pillars of our group is to design and create robots! We participate in several competitions around the United States and locally, as well as other non-competitive robot builds. Teams are generally formed around a robot, and are organized by one or more project leads as well as subteam leads. UMN students of any major or skill level are welcome to join, no prior experience required! Teams are made up of a variety of backgrounds and majors, and are usually organized into subteams for areas like mechanical, electrical, and software, along with other project-specific subteams.
Competitive Builds
University of Minnesota Robotics competes in a variety of collegiate robotics competitions such as Autonomous Snowplow, VEX U, Lunabotics, and FTCU. It is not mandatory to participate in these teams as a member, but we highly encourage interested members to join.
Noncompetitive Builds and Projects
We also host several noncompetitve robot builds, as well as fund members' project proposals, be it robots or otherwise. Our Robot in 3 Days (Ri3D) build for the First Robotics Competition (FRC) is our most popular build, complete with its own livestream available online. Robot in One Weekend is a similar project, but designed around the First Tech Challenge (FTC).
Previous noncompetitve robot builds include:
- An air hockey robot
- "Hexacopter", a robotic drone project
- "Mini-6", drivetrain prototype robots
- "Paul-Bot", a smaller FTC robot
- A large scale "BB-8" robot
Other noncompetitive projects funded by the group include:
- Designing games for the Kinect sensor
- A powdercoating oven
- A 3D print shredder and filament recycler