ASEE Robotics
The American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) sponsors an annual Robotics competition in which only students in the first two years of their engineering program are permitted to compete. Students design and build an autonomous electric car that can go up and down hills, follow a curved black line along the course, and even stop while going downhill. The student teams are required to make a ten-minute PowerPoint oral presentation and provide a written handout of the circuit schematics, vehicle drawings, and price list. Then, they have to race. Without any kind of remote control, each vehicle must try to be the fastest at navigating a maze-like track. Cedarville's entries won the 1st place awards three years in a row. In addition, a second robot was entered in the 2003 competition and came in 3rd place. Cedarville's two winning robots were aptly named the Tortoise (3rd place) and the Hare (1st place).
The 2005 entry competed at the summer conference in Portland, Oregon. Rather than simply following lines this year, the team was to construct an autonomous ping pong ball delivery system. While all of the other teams used the "split-and-go" technique to get an equal number of balls into the four corners of the field, the Cedarville team programmed its robot to travel around to each of the corners and drop the appropriate number of balls into the bins. They came in a close 2nd place behind a crafty team from Monroe, MI.