Notice: The competition has been CANCELLED due to the lack of financial support

ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Conference
October 28-30, 2015 - Columbus, Ohio
Robotics/Mechatronics Control Challenge for Undergraduate Students

         Desciption      Team Requirements      Procedure        Prizes         Important Dates        Organizers      
                                                                                                                                                                              
Note: MathWorks will provide complimentary software to participating teams (see below)
Challenge Description 
  The Robotics/Mechatronics challenge will be organized as part of DSCC'15, which is the primary event of the ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Division (DSCD). The challenge consists of designing and building a robotics/mechatronics device, either with a specific application, or as a laboratory demo. The device should have at least two degrees of freedom and some form of sensing to facilitate an autonomous operation. The cost of building the device should be within a total budget of $300. The call for proposals in pdf is posted here.
Team Requirements

The team should consist of three undergraduate students from US universities, while one faculty member can advise multiple teams. The student team members are required to become student members of the ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Division before receiving any support for the project and taking part in the challenge.

 

Procedure

Potential participants from US universities are invited to send a brief description of their projects to the organizers. The submitted document should include the project title, its description and necessary sketches. It should list the team members, their e-mail contact information and the name and contact of a faculty member advising the team.

Following the review of project descriptions, 5-10 teams will be invited to participate based on the quality of projects and available resources. Each invited team will receive up to $300 to build their device and up to $160 for the production of their poster. Each team member will receive the necessary amount of money to cover the DSCC student registration fee and some money (funding permitting) towards their travel costs.

Before the DSCC'15 conference, each team should record a video of their working device and send it to the organizers. This will serve as the evidence that the teams have their device, or demo ready for the conference.

At the conference site, the students will exhibit the poster describing their project and show the working device. If the device, or demo requires a laptop computer, it needs to be provided by the team. A jury composed of DSCC'15 participants will evaluate and rank the teams based on the poster presentation, the performance of the device during the live demonstration, and the novelty of the device.
Prizes
Certificates along with the cash prizes of the following amounts will be awarded to the three top-ranked teams:

First-ranked team: $900
Second-ranked team: $600
Third-ranked team: $300

Important Dates

- Project description by March 2, 2015 (Tentative)

- Video by October 10, 2015 (Tentative)

- Demonstration at DSCC-October 2015 (the challenge will be organized on one of the conference days)

Organizers

Dejan Milutinović, UC Santa Cruz, CA, e-mail: dejan at soe dot ucsc dot edu
Manish Kumar, University of Toledo, OH, e-mail: manish.kumar2 at utoledo dot edu
Event is sponsored by: ASME Dynamic Systems & Control Division

MathWorks will provide complimentary software to teams participating in the Robotics/Mechatronics Control Challenge for Undergraduate Students as a part of the Dynamic Systems and Control Conference. Student teams will receive access to MATLAB and Simulink software for developing their control algorithms and deploying the algorithms to supported hardware platforms.

The Faculty Advisor for your team should fill out this form to request software. It can take up to 3 weeks to process the request. For questions or further details, please contact: Balaji Sharma, Technical Evangelist,  MathWorks, e-mailbalaji.sharma@mathworks.com .   

MathWorks Resources 

Using MATLAB and Simulink with Hardware

Learning Basic Mechatronics Concepts Using the Arduino Board and MATLAB

Programming the Arduino with Simulink

Student teams are also encouraged to visit the MathWorks Makerzone to explore interesting projects in the maker community using MATLAB and Simulink with low-cost hardware platforms.