All of the robots in RoboJackets are built to solve a competition problem statement: knock a robot out of the ring, play soccer, navigate off-road, destroy another robot, or race around a track. When our members are not solving these crazy problem statements (and of course balancing life and school work), many like to kick…
Category: Newsletter
Introducing the RoboWrestling Robots
RoboJacket’s newest team, RoboWrestling, participates in autonomous robotic sumo competitions, typically held in Tokyo, Japan. The goal of this competition, as is the case with real sumo wrestling, is to push an opposing robot out of the arena, referred to as the dohyō. When two robots face off, they compete in up to three matches….
Meet the Project Managers & Outreach Chair: Interview Feature
RoboJackets (often abbreviated RJ) is an organization that manages to participate in a myriad of robotics competitions and activities to further our mission to promote, educate, and advance the field of robotics. We couldn’t do this without a robust and effective leadership structure, populated with leaders who are passionate about their projects and work tirelessly…
RoboJackets by the Numbers
RoboJackets is a prolific competitive robotics organization with a twenty-one-year-long history. In that time, we’ve grown from a small group of passionate students that wanted to build a combat robot to an organization of over 300 members working on five separate teams that travel to competitions all over the world. Take a look at a…
RoboNav – August Spotlight
RoboNav, formerly referred to as IGVC, is taking its drivetrain in a bold new (omni) direction. A typical IGVC robot in RoboJackets has two powered wheels and a caster to drive the robot through the course, but this year RoboNav is designing a swerve drive system. The main difference between a swerve drive and a…
RoboCup – August Spotlight
RoboCup, the international competition centered around autonomous soccer, is an excellent opportunity for roboticists across the world to meet and collaborate. Our RoboCup team is taking that opportunity to collaborate with ThunderBots, the RoboCup Small Size League (SSL) team from the University of British Columbia. Pictured are our two teams at RoboCup 2019 in Sydney,…
RoboRacing – August Spotlight
RoboRacing, the RoboJackets team dedicated to autonomous racing, is participating in a new competition this year: evGrand Prix. RoboRacing has participated in the International Autonomous Robot Racing Challenge and at Sparkfun AVC, in both the smaller classic autonomous vehicle competition and the autonomous power racing series. Because Sparkfun discontinued AVC in 2018, the team has…
BattleBots – August Spotlight
Last year in BattleBots, one of the large bots that participated in the hobbyweight (12 lb weight limit) division at Motorama was Apachi, an experimental bent-bar spinner with a shuffler-style drivetrain. The drivetrain worked exactly as intended and the robot pitter-pattered its way around its opponents. Its downfall was its bent bar weapon, which snapped…
RoboWrestling – August Spotlight
RoboJackets has been participating in sumo robotics competitions for six years, starting with two remote-controlled sumo robots at RoboGames 2015 as a part of BattleBots. Since then, our sumo team has grown in membership and scope, participating in the annual All Japan Robot Sumo Competition in the autonomous division for four years. Pictured is the…