Eurobot robotics competition
Project overview: Eurobot is an intense, fast-paced international competition where fully autonomous robots go head-to-head on a shared game board to complete specific mechanical tasks. I led 'Team Revolution', and together we designed, built, and programmed two robots that secured 2nd place in the UK national competition.
Building the bots: We wanted robots that were robust and easy to repair. Starting with Arduino brains and RD-02 drive kits, we laser-cut the main chassis from plywood. To handle the game pieces, we relied heavily on a simple, highly repeatable rack and pinion mechanism driven by servos, which we modularized to actuate both our plough arms and object movers. For the delicate sorting tasks, we designed a custom magnetic gripper that picked and placed pieces with zero fail rate during competition.
Reliability is everything: In robotics competitions, a simple robot that works 100% of the time will always beat a complex robot that works 80% of the time. We focused heavily on DFM (Design for Manufacture) and durability, crash-testing the robots against ultrasonic sensor blind spots and refining our collision avoidance code. This project was a foundational bootcamp for me in rapid prototyping, system integration, and leading a technical team under pressure.