In Fall 2023, UT's ME Senior Design class taught by mechanical engineering professors Chris Rylander and Maryam Tilson, took on a new challenge: design a 3-lb battlebot ready for competition by the end of the semester.
With a $300 budget limit, student teams in the course quickly got to work, leveraging the hands-on facilities at Texas Inventionworks (TIW). Equipped with 3D printers, laser cutters, bandsaws, electronics capabilities and an array of hand tools, students easily prototyped and refined their creations over the 14-week semester. Yet, a crucial question remained—where could these battlebots come to life in all their glory?
Driven by a personal passion for battlebots and a desire to promote its presence on campus, TIW student staff members Luca Macesanu (ECE), Abhi Vedhire (ME) and Krishnan Ram (ME), along with other enthusiastic ME students Chase Johnson (ME) and Fei Liu (ME), volunteered to create an arena fit for the task. TIW student staff member and one of the project leaders, Luca, it was personal: "I have a sister that will hopefully be coming to UT in the next few years, and I want battlebot opportunities to continue even after I leave… building an arena is a big part of making that happen.”
By building their own arena, students could save on the financial cost (and logistical headache) of renting an arena. Having a physical presence of the arena open for all to see at Texas Inventionworks also helps to spark curiosity among students.
Building the arena came with its own challenges and learning process and was a group effort of many TIW student staff members & volunteers. It was three weeks of many sleepless nights and a lot of hard work, but Luca described it as an experience unlike anything in the classroom. “It felt like a rare learning opportunity,” said Luca, who also noted that being able to bring the project through its full cycle from an idea to real-world implementation taught him a lot about the design process.
Luca described lessons in double-checking material orders, tolerance considerations and thinking through mechanical assembly. The assembly process of the arena (which ended up being 8'X8’X4’) included a memorable scene of six people wielding mallets in sync to get all the walls to fit in at the same time.
One week before the competition, the arena opened for student testing. On competition day, the arena stood the test of twenty team competitions for both capstone sections. It fulfilled its critical function of “stopping projectiles” and is still in battle-ready condition for other competitions.
Luca and the TIW staff are now setting their sights on broader horizons for the battlebot arena. Beyond using the arena for the TIW-hosted Texas RoboRumble competition this spring, plans are in motion to make it available for other battlebot events, promising an exciting future for battlebots not only at TIW but across the university.
More about battlebots on campus:
- The Texas RoboRumble competition is hosted every spring at TIW - more information posted on our Discord channel and flyers around campus
- The Experimental Division (a passionate battlebot group currently applying to be a student organization)
- TIW student staff members competed at SXSW Metal Mayhem - read the story
