Servo - April 2013

FIGURE 9. Joel Cooper and Mike Gellatly receive their Beetleweight awards, 1st and 2nd place, respectively.

against Busted Nuts Robotics’ Deja Voodoo. Steve was a newcomer to GCRS, but had recently won ComBots.

Steve’s driver, Joel Cooper, is finishing his second year of graduate school at USF toward a PhD in Mechanical Engineering with a focus on acoustic forces and cell/tissue engineering. He explained that Steve was originally built for USF’s Engineering Expo in 2012 with a designed based off of the heavyweight robot, Last Rites.

FIGURE 10. Elizabeth McAmis made robot-inspired birthday cakes of Walla Walla and Voodoo Magic.

At 11,000 RPM, “it demonstrates the way kinetic energy can be stored and transferred in a way that is exciting to kids and adults alike.” Steve had put DeJa Voodoo in the loser’s bracket earlier in the day in a match that resulted in a significant gash high on the arena wall. “GCRS was the only competition where Steve had full armor on his backside. In previous competitions, we used a mixture of pool noodles and gorilla tape to keep wires/speed controllers inside,” explains Joel.