Robot to the rescue as team wins prize

Engineering

A team of University of Adelaide Mechanical Engineering students has won a national design and build competition with an all-terrain disaster-relief robotic vehicle named ARTHUR.

The second-year students were competing against 13 other finalist teams from universities across Australia, and teams from Malaysia and New Zealand.

The Warman Design-and-Build Competition is organised by Engineers Australia and sponsored by Weir Minerals Australia Ltd. The national finalists had already won their local competitions.

The winning University of Adelaide students were Tristan Goss, Eric Parsonage (team captain), Bryn Crawford and Shane Fitzgerald.

"ARTHUR (Autonomous, Ready-Tested Heuristic Using Robot) consistently outperformed other competing devices and decisively won the competition," said Dr Antoni Blazewicz, supervising lecturer in the School of Mechanical Engineering.

"It was a great result, reflecting the dedication and talent of these students and, more generally, shows the high level of technology and innovation that underpin the School's degree programs."

The annual competition centres around designs involving rescue of the threatened inhabitants of the planet "Gondwana".

This year students had to design an all-terrain autonomous device to help get relief packages to where they were needed.

The prototypes had to be able to navigate difficult terrains and deploy a relief load, with points awarded for speed, accuracy of delivery, and the number of sections of track crossed by the device.

ARTHUR used infrared sensing to determine its absolute position.

"The innovative nature of the design is in its mix of feedback and control systems," said Dr Blazewicz.

All mechanical components were designed and machined by members of the team.

Story by Robyn Mills