we are group of mechanical and electrical engineers and computer scientists based in cambridge, massachusetts. we are collaborating to build a team of robots for small-size league robocup competition. we are a joint harvard-mit endeavor with members ranging from undergraduate freshmen to graduate students.
the harvard component of our club stems from the harvard college engineering society, which was founded in 2004 as a club to join together students of all engineering disciplines and provide them with opportunities to explore their interests. in 2005, it merged with the mit competitive robotics club, which competed in the battlebots competition.
we are building robots for the robocup small-size league, a competition of soccer-playing robots no more than 15 cm in diameter and 18 cm tall. during the competition, the robots are completely autonomous, getting outside inputs only from overhead cameras and an external referee box.
our mechanical engineers design and build our robots, our electrical engineers design our circuit boards, our computer scientists build the software platforms. every year we countinue to improve on the system we have in place.
we started out based at mit e60 and harvard's pierce hall (room b9, in the basement). since those humble beginnings, we have also acquired the third floor lounge in harvard's maxwell dworkin hall. (this is where our field lives!) if you are interested, feel free to stop by!
you can also read more about our team structure, past competitions, and how to join.
our team has about 30 active members across harvard and mit, most of which are undergraduates. we have 3 subteams: mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and computer science. each of the subteams meets weekly and the whole team meets every other week, alternating between harvard and mit. we have 2 presidents, one from harvard and one fomr mit as well as an executive board.
in april 2006, we competed in the US open against carnegie mellon and laval. as this was our first competition, we learned very much--everything from the importance of geometric calibration to correct for camera distortion to the fact that our robots will not move if we try to avoid obstacles by too large of a radius. (the me and ee people learned a lot as well, but a cs person is writing this...) we came in second place and now have a large trophy that lives in a glass case by maxwell dworkin cafe.
in june 2006, we competed in the robocup world cup in bremen, germany. it was very exciting for us to go, especially as we had not even been sure if we could qualify this first year. the world cup was not only for the small-size league, but also for the mid-size, aibo, humanoid, rescue, and robocup junior leagues, so there was always something fun to watch in our down time, when we had any. we played in a bracket against field ranger (singapore), plasma-z (thailand), kiks (japan), and b-smart (germany). though we did not win any of our games, it was really great to watch and play against so many good teams. this competition was the best learning experience we'd had all year, and we got many good ideas for how to improve our systems for next year!
we always welcome new members who love robots and are willing to work hard to make our robots good! the best way to join is to e-mail kyle to get on the mailing list--that way, you can find out about the meeting and start attending them to get up to speed! if you would like to know more about a particular subteam, you can feel free to e-mail the subgroup leaders. if you would like more general information about joining the club or are apprehensive about attending meetings without knowing anything first, please e-mail geneva.