Harrison Robohawks Top World Competition

Barry Brouillette guesses that, working with a group of professional engineers over several months, he could get a robot to complete the tasks set out by the Lawrence Technological University (LTU) Robofest competition in about 15 seconds.

A robot built by Robotics Club students, with Brouillette and Steve Dail coaching, completed the tasks in just five seconds.

Those five seconds were all the club needed to take first place out of about 150 teams. The Harrison Robohawks won the Senior Division Game Competition May 7 at LTU in Southfield.

With no remote control, robots had to move around a table and drop Styrofoam cups onto PVC pipes. Robots also had to knock another piece of pipe and a cup off the table and place a cup over a pipe that was obstructed from view.

Before the competition, the team worked tirelessly, sometimes until 2 a.m., retooling the robot between three phases of competition. Though it took several months to get the robot perfected, success began with the very first team meeting.

Balaji Pandian suggested that the team build a larger robot that could complete multiple tasks simultaneously.

“Honestly, I was just joking around, and I was like ‘Why don’t we just make a huge one?’,” Pandian said. “And then we got a couple meetings in and we said ‘Actually that might not be a bad idea.’.”

If more than one robot is able to complete all tasks perfectly during the competition, time becomes a tie-breaker. Harrison's completed all the tasks in five seconds. The second place finisher completed the tasks in 12 seconds, and the third place team used 43 seconds.

 “Most teams … had a small robot that would do one of those jobs at a time,” Brouillette said. “From that moment, I mean this is the very first meeting we had about this thing, we were sort of going down this path of trying to get maximum speed.”

Senior Kishan Patel said the feeling of winning is unlike any other, and the creative problem solving is something he plans to take along as he studies neuroscience at Johns Hopkins.

“It kind of feels like being on top of the world,” Patel said. “You push the start button, and you’re just waiting for your robot to do its tasks, which happened in about five seconds, amazingly.”

Minkus said the anticipation of the competition was more pressure than the five seconds the robot was in action.

“Fortunately, it happened quick enough that our torture wasn’t long,” Minkus said. “It was more nerve-wracking before than during, because once it started, what happened, happened.”

Pandian agreed, and said the time to complete the tasks went so fast, he didn’t have time to be nervous.

“We just kind of stood there like awestruck,” Pandian said. “It was a great feeling.”

The Harrison High School Robotics Team used to compete with remote-control robots. Brouillette said the autonomous robots present a completely different obstacle.

Before Brouillette joined as coach in 1999, the club participated in more costly, corporate-funded events. Now Brouillette, an engineer and former physics teacher, funds much of the project himself, with some help from the school district.

“It was great. We haven’t come in first for a few years so that was real nice,” Brouillette said. “The kids were really excited.”