The Struggle Bots “Sumo” tournament was held on April 11 at 5:30 p.m. in the Firstenburg Student Commons by WSU Vancouver’s Struggling Engineers Club. This time, participants from six teams each made their own robot to destroy or push each other off of the arena, formed by two tables placed side-by-side.
In the months leading up to the tournament, the club hosted multiple workshops throughout the semester for soldering and programming for the robots, while the teams customized the design and build with materials such as styrofoam, Legos and cardboard.
“I think it went really well,” said Struggling Engineers club president Sage Ford, who organized the event. “We had 10 teams sign up, and although four teams ended up dropping out, six ended up being a really good number for the time we had. This also gave teams a chance to compete twice. It ended in a good time for everyone— even the teams who didn’t compete enjoyed attending and getting in on the action.”
Three grand prizes in the form of small trophies were prepared by a panel of judges: an award for mechanical creativity and battle strategy, an award for the robot’s design and a control award. Additionally, a trophy was awarded to the first place victors.
Team Killdozer (Alex Nyugen, Haakon Johnson and Austin Wilson), Team Kierra Lacca (Fatimah Diallo, Bo Harmon, Nyx Currie and Luke Goddard), Team the G.O.A.T.s (James Lesperance, Sage Ford and Alex Flores), Team Whiplash (Venessa Kuchenik, Keegan Sanchez and Henry Prouty), Team Robot Wizard Money Gang (Kathleen Cannon, Gianni Avilan, Griffin Bizal and Alyx Wilhelm) and Team Breaking Bots (Joseph Reyes-Hernandez, Beni Simic and Juan Lozoya) went head-to-head in the one versus one triple elimination tournament, where teams that won three battles before losing three battles could proceed to the next round.
After a long struggle, the finale came down to two teams: Team Whiplash and Team Breaking Bots (aptly named after the hit TV show “Breaking Bad”). Breaking Bots’ Lego robot collided head-on with the round blue disk robot piloted by Whiplash. Team Whiplash’s low-reaching robot’s design allowed them to “scoop” Breaking Bots’ Lego robot up and gradually push it to the edge of the hexagonal arena.
Breaking Bots valiantly attempted to drive their Lego robot on top of Whiplash’s disk assailant, but were unable to overcome the resulting friction and fell off the arena to its ultimate demise, crowning Team Whiplash the winners of the tournament.
According to Team Whiplash’s Henry Prouty, the robot’s success relied on their design and maneuvering strategy.
“We were confident,” said Prouty, who was also the first-place winner of the first Struggle Bots Tournament held last November. “[Our robot] was made out of 3D printing material, plastic, we were trying to go low and fast so we could scoop them off.”
The team described using a custom digitally rendered mold using computer-aided design software, specifically a digital 3D modeling program to create the winning robot. Fellow team member Venessa Kuchenik said that apart from minor modifications, their robot was similar in concept to Prouty’s robot from the last competition, which was a yellow sloping pyramid. In addition to taking home the first place trophy, the team also won the design award for their blue disk.
“[Our robot] was pretty hefty,” Kuchenik said.
According to Ford, Prouty will be the next president for the 2024 to 2025 school year, but the club may not hold another tournament until spring.
“We’d like to do another competition next year,” said Ford. “I’m studying abroad this fall semester and have handed off my presidential duties for that time, so it’s unlikely we will do a fall game. But we are definitely coming back next spring.”