November 25, 2009
By Jacky Lau, i87 Team Leader
The U of T student design team placed third out of the 16 teams that advanced to the final competition in the 2009 American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Student Design Competition on November 15. The 2009 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE) was held at Lake Buena Vista, Florida. The U of T rover, named i87, is a redesigned and upgraded version from its predecessor, i86, and represented U of T and Canada in this international competition against over 70 teams from around the world.
i87, a remote-controlled three-wheel rover, performed extremely smoothly during the beginning of its run. It was able navigate through all of the obstacles and retrieve all of the rocks within two minutes, less than half of the allowed time. However, after the rover precisely placed all of the rocks into the retrieval area, it mistakenly made a sharp turn on its way to the final parking position, which caused the support wheel to land outside the field boundary. This mistake resulted in an automatic point deduction which probably prevented the team from finishing higher in the competition.
“Although there was a bit of disappointment when we made the mistake that caused a thousand-point deduction during our run, the signs of relief and joy could still be seen on all the team member’s faces after the run because our rover already performed above our expectation,” said Jacky Lau, i87 Team Leader.
The competition is so competitive, Jacky said, that every single gram of extra weight and every extra mAh of battery capacity available to the rover can make the difference between a winning rover and a competition participant.
In March 2009, the team’s first rover i86, won first place in the ASME District B Student Design Competition. After reviewing the mistake they made during the district competition and benchmarking themselves against other rovers in the competition, the team completely redesigned their first rover to come up with the new i87 design.
“We want to be a team that goes to the competition and win or at least die trying if our competitors are too strong,” Jacky added.
The i87 team consists of Jacky, Johnson Zhuang (Programmer), Derek Chan, andTony Tam.
Photo 1 (above left): The team along with judges and boeing representatives. From left to right: Jacky Lau, Derek Chan, Johnson Zhuang, Tony Tam
Photo 2 (above right): i87 on display before the competition
