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Stories from Tech Expo 2008 5/6 - Update: Bearclaw Wins! Bearclaw literally chewed the competition winning all but its opening match to win the National Scholastic BattleBot Competition. Additionally, the team won Best Engineering Award and Best Driving Award. Bearclaw to Battle! Bearclaw is a robot designed and built for a single purpose - to meet other robots in battle, survive their assaults, inflict damage on them, and either drive them off the course or into submission. Bearclaw is the college's entry into the middle-weight division of the scholastic Battlebot Competition held in Miami Florida April 30 through May 4.  Patterned on a popular TV show called "BattleBots," the competition arena is a 32 foot square flat surface with trouble in the corners and pop-up obstacles at positions in the floor itself. Pushing your opponent into one of the corners is a good way to win one of the three-minute matches as the corners contain pulverizers - large mallets that batter a cornered robot.This robot appears more like a "turtle with an attitude" than the paw of a bearcat. The robot is armored top and bottom with wheels extending through the armor, also top and bottom. "If we get flipped, Bearclaw just keeps on rolling," claims Jon Taphorn, team structures specialist. Helping to ensure its survival the frame is made from aircraft aluminum and the armor is honeycomb titanium... Very strong and tough.
With its modular design, interchangeable parts, tough armor, and independent drive systems, this robot is well built and boasts a tight turning radius and is extremely agile. Bearclaw can weave and dodge and upon spotting an opening - attack. This robot has teeth! Twenty teeth welded to a carbon steel drum mounted in the front and rotating at 3800 rpm present a fearsome weapon. "When the weapon encounters another robot, it has the capability of literally shredding it or tearing the wheels off. You really don't want to be in its path," asserts Jake Barnhorst, team leader. Describing his team's dedication and determination to this effort, Jake commented, "Robots are the future. They are everywhere, doing everything from housework, to factory work, and even the military uses drones for reconnaissance. We wanted to familiarize ourselves with their construction and operation - this is the ideal capstone project to show our capabilities. We are really fortunate to have had such strong support from our department and industry sponsors. Bearclaw and video of its matches at the Scholastic Battlebot Competition will be highlights of 2008 EXPO. Battlebot Team Sponsors include: Bill Burwinkel, CM Junior • • • For more on Robotics and Mechanical Engineering Technology at CAS - Click Here For more on Tech Expo - Click Here College of Applied Science www.uc.edu/cas |
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"We expect nothing less than a top ten finish!" exulted Tim Meyer, team driver, as he piloted Bearclaw down the hall and into the interview room. "We're ready and Bearclaw is hungry."
"The design was months in the making as we researched different alternatives and looked at video of competitions and robot battles. Keeping the weight under the middle-weight class 120 pounds is a real challenge," states David Bailey, the team's armorer. "We came up with a robot that will be hard to flip over and is built to survive."