By Amanda DeCanio
This July, I had the honor of leading UF’s ASABE Robotics
Team to the Annual International Meeting (AIM) in Orlando, Florida. I want to
take this opportunity to highlight some of my team’s most telling moments
thanks to this experience.
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| In the lead: Amanda DeCanio |
The Task Before Us
For 2016, student teams were tasked with designing two
autonomous prototype citrus harvesting robots. The overall goal was to collect,
sort, transfer, and deposit orange and green ping pong balls, representing
healthy and unhealthy oranges.
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| A mild-mannered part, but crucial to the process |
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| The robot field of battle...and harvest |
Through this process our team collaborated on a design
concept, came together for practices and team meetings, trusted each other's
skills, and fanned each other’s desire to learn. I really enjoyed working with
each member of my team and I am still smiling with the performance we showed
and sportsmanship we demonstrated in those short two days of competition.
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| UF ABE's ASABE Robotics Team 2016 |
Eduardo Carrascal, Hao Gan, Akram Gholami, and Thiago Onofre
were dedicated, passionate, and enthusiastic on a subject none of us
specifically had much practice in. It was refreshing to work alongside such a
diverse group of individuals and exciting to learn about each of their
interests and backgrounds. We came together as a unit, played on each other's
strengths, and closed the gaps on each other’s weaknesses.
Start Tinkering
Robots are unpredictably cool! If you have never played with
robot parts, like an Arduino or a breadboard, pick some up and challenge
yourself to make a motor spin. The first moment I ran a full circuit and made a
motor start and stop under my command, more than just the gears clicked: I felt
in control. I felt I had the power to command motion and robotic decision even
though I knew my motor could not “think” on its own accord.
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| Harvest ready robots |
Acknowledgements
A warm thank you to Dr. Ali Pourreza, Dr. Daniel Lee, and the UF ABE
department; for believing in our shared goal and for pushing us out of our
comfort zone to risks that in effect improved our overall experience.
As humans, our originality can be considered one of our
greatest strengths; robots, on the other hand, can be mass-produced. Therefore,
in the advancement of robotic technological design, we have a responsibility to
maintain that creativity and boldness we innately possess.
Relive the 2016 ASABE AIM Robotics Design Student Competition
(An ASABE & IrriGator collaborative production)
