Every self-proclaimed engineer has faced the challenge...the notorious game of Pac-Man. As it is, playing Pac Man as a human can be extremely challenging, however programming a micromouse robot- a robot that can fit in the palm of your hand, running simply on arduinos, to beat Pac-Man seems crazy!
Organized by Harvard Robotics, the Pac Bot challenge was the first micromouse robot competition of its kind, especially aimed at freshman and sophomores interested in getting hands on experience with robotics and competitions. Schools all over the east coast were invited including all the ivy leagues.
This year Rutgers IEEE rejuvenated its robotics programming opting to have a busy competition season, with 3 teams, cumulatively over 25 students, compete in competitions at Harvard, Brown, along with various regional and national competitions through VexU.
The Harvard team was led by Rutgers MechE sophomore, Belal Said, who with his teammates spent months playing with sensors, attempting various 3D printed designs for the robot, programing custom algorithms and even building their own large scale Pac-Man field from wood! As a result, Rutgers IEEE's victory beating Harvard in a best of three game of robot Pac-Man was sweet and a memorable experience! Of course there is always room to improve, and the Rutgers team will be back next year at Harvard to defend its title as the Pac-Bot Champion! Interested in joining Rutgers-IEEE robotics? Email rutgers.ieee@gmail.com or Like Rutgers IEEE on Facebook!
The students representing Rutgers at the competition were: Niral Shah (ECE '17) Waseem Khan (Physics '18) Belal Said (ME '19) Ryan Weikel (ME '19) Mohammed Saleh (ECE '20) IEEE faculty advisor Maryam Mehri-Dehnavi.