Robot Wars at Cronton Sixth Form

Inventive IT students at Cronton Sixth Form College recently had the opportunity to put their knowledge and talents to the test, in a competitive ‘Robot Wars’ contest at the College.

Five teams were each tasked with designing their own unique warrior, and choosing an effective attack weapon and defence strategy. The completed machines then battled in a ‘last robot standing’ event to be crowned the ‘Cronton Robot Wars 2015 Champion’.

Student Rebbeca Cushnie, formerly of Saints Peter & Paul Catholic College, said “When designing our robot, we thought about what could be more defensive against others and decided on a swinging claw weapon. There are two sensors on the robot; an ultrasonic sensor which detect targets, and a colour sensor which will detect the arena edge to prevent the robot from leaving. We used loop coding and programming so the robot will strike when a target is detected.

“It’s quite a fun module and very practical. In the future I’m hoping to work in programming; robotics is something I am considering as it is used in everyday life and would be a good career to follow.”
Student Joshua McQuillan, formerly of Saints Peter & Paul Catholic College, said “Our robot is small in size and built for speed. We added arms either side of the robot to prevent it from being tipped over by bigger enemies, adding stability to the design and hopefully giving us an advantage.
“It’s been a very good module and fun to make the robots. In the future I’m looking at a career in IT, such as coding and programming, hopefully I can work in some form of robotics as I find it very interesting.”

The event is part of the ‘Controlling Systems’ module on the Level 3 BTEC IT Practitioners course. The module involves students designing and implementing a robot control system, including user requirements, proposed design sketches, inputs, processes and outputs, and a programming flow chart for the proposed system.
The Robot Wars battle was eventually won by the team of Bradley Scamp, Callen Ricardo, and Declan Smith. The winning robot used a vehicle design with a projectile weapon situated at the front.