The third annual Line Following Robotics Competition took place Saturday in the Engineering and Physics Laboratories at Bennett Gymnasium.

Participants were responsible for designing and building a fully automated robot that could navigate around a curved black-lined course on its own. Robotics teams could enter into the junior, senior or open division.

The competition served as an opportunity for mainly junior high and high school kids to show off their engineering talents in a college setting.

“I think it is a great opportunity for getting ACU’s name out to junior high and high school kids who are thinking about doing engineering or science related studies when they go off to college,” said Dr. Darby Hewitt, executive co-director of engineering said.

In order to complete the line following course, builders used sensors on the bottom of each robot that admits inferred light and senses the reflected light back as there is a big contrast on what is reflected over black and what is reflected over white.

“The schools that compete usually use Lego Mindstorms or Vex Robotics to program the robot sensors,” Hewitt said.

In total, there were 18 robots and over 50 participants. ‘Rev’ (left picture) came in first place for the junior division, ‘The Defiant’ (middle picture) came in first place for the senior division and ‘Bot 3’ (right picture) came in first place for the open division.

The first annual Line Following Competition took place at Wylie junior high school. The last two years, ACU has hosted the competition. Going forward, ACU plans to continue hosting annual robotic competitions for junior high and high school kids. ACU also plans to add another competition for colleges in the Abilene and Metroplex areas.

(Picture Attribution) Darby Hewitt, Executive Co-Director of Engineering gave me permission to use these photos in the story that were posted taken by workers and volunteers

in the engineering department.