Tools

Lego Robo Rat Festival

Written by KEYT Anchor

Story Created: Jul 29, 2011 at 6:33 PM PDT

Story Updated: Aug 1, 2011 at 11:12 AM PDT

Santa Barbara - A few dozen UCSB engineering students got the change to "square off" on Thursday in a unique competition. The students took part in the Lego Robo Rat Festival.

It's basically robots made from Lego, DC motors, micro- controllers and a variety of sensors that competed against each other. The mission was to gather the most "cheese" - which was made from foam blocks.

The competition was basically a final exam for the engineering students. Even though they may still be playing with Legos, they were also solving complex electro- mechanical problems.

"You have an idea, you build it, doesn't work, so you destroy it. You start again, build it, doesn't work so you keep doing that again and again until you finally come with a solution that is better than the last one and today we have the best solution we could come up with in one weeks time" says engineering student Carl Bycraft.

Carl says he and his team logged 12 hour days for close to six weeks preparing for the competition.
This content requires the latest Adobe Flash Player and a browser with JavaScript enabled. Click here for a free download of the latest Adobe Flash Player.

Primetime

AFV
7.00
america's funniest home videos
8.00
billboard music awards
11.00
key news