RoboMasters Robotics Competition

Who We Are

We are ARUW. That is short for Advanced Robotics at the University of Washington. We are an interdisciplinary college robotics program based in Seattle,  at the University of Washington. Our team comprises 50+ engineering, computer science and business students. We all share the same passion for robotics, and we are excited to see what we can do!

(Our members at our season kickoff)

What We Do

Each year, we travel to Shenzhen, China to compete in the RoboMasters competition. There, we will compete against teams from over 300 universities around the world. We build a team of nine robots who play against other teams robots in what can best be explained as robot paintball. Last year, we received second prize in the international bracket.

(The field on which we compete; it is slightly larger than a basketball court)

What We Build

(As our robots for this year are still in construction, we have used images from last year)

Standard

Small, fast, and versatile; Three of these robots make up the meat and potatoes of our team. Our pilots drive them around the field, launching plastic 17 millimeter pellets at our opponents robots.

Hero

As its name suggests, this robot leads the team from the front. No push to the opponent's base would be complete without this absolute beast of a robot. Able to launch golf balls instead of just the small pellets, the Hero can really shake things up on the field. 

Engineer

Unfortunately, things don't always go as planned in matches. When one of our robots loses all of its hit-points and is powered off, the Engineer jumps into action. It tows the defeated robot back to base where it can be repaired back to full health. The Engineer also supplies the Hero with Golf Balls during the match.

Sentinel

The Sentinel is the only autonomous robot on our team. It drives back and forth on its rail autonomously targeting the opponents robots. This  robot is the last line of defense. Past it lies the defenseless base. But getting past the Sentinel is no mean feat. Equipped with two pellet launchers, it can quickly chew through the hit-points of any robot who wanders too near.

Aerial

High above the confused tangle of robots on the field, the Aerial is our eye in the sky. It lets us see what our opponents are up to. Without the Aerial, we could not prepare to defend our base from the opponent's pushes. Standing at an intimidating four and a half feet across, this drone can lift loads of up to 20 kilograms (45 pounds)

Dart Launcher

The Dart launcher is new this year, so we don't have a picture for it yet, but we are very excited to build one. The dart launcher small autonomous planes across the field to hit a target roughly the size of a salad plate.

Radar Station

The Radar Station is the only counter to the Dart Launcher. It doesn't launch anything itself, but it tracks incoming darts and sends information to the other robots. The other robots can then knock the incoming darts out of the sky before they can hit our base. The darts can take a quarter of the base's health in one hit so there is very little margin for error here.

What We Need

Our robots and the target robots will both be moving quickly so aiming the pellets correctly is challenging. We trained a neural network to help us target the correct parts of the robots, but even that is sometimes not enough. As you can see in the picture of the field from earlier, the lighting in the venue is cinematically low. As such, it is hard to see exactly where our pellets are going. This is where the PCB's come in. We designed a UV light board to illuminate the pellets as they are being launched. The plastic of the pellets is slightly glow-in-the-dark, so we can see their entire trajectory with just the initial illumination.

Support from PCBway would be incredibly useful. We need 20 double layer, aluminium core, PCBs. With these boards, we can get a leg up on the competition. We have done better every year since our conception in 2014, and we hope to continue this trend with the help of PCBway.

Sincerely,

The members of ARUW

              (One of our Standard Robots completes an objective)

  (Team members Han Yang, Eric, and Zoe prepare robots for competition)