Robotics Battle of the Bots with Kara

This past Monday, Northern Illinois University’s Robotics team partnered up with other engineering clubs around the college to host their own battle bots competition. There were a large number of students and clubs involved, including the National Society of Black Engineers, Huskie Motorsports, Cell Tech, and your very own Society of Women Engineers!

SWE's battle bot decorated by Betty.

Each club was given a robot body to decorate to represent their club. Many bots were made to look like cars, or featured club logos. SWE designed ours to look like Suki’s car from the Fast and Furious franchise to show that we were fast and dedicated, yet fun and colorful. One of the judging factors in the competition was “Best Dressed.” The team with the best decorations was exempt from the first round of the competition bracket. Thanks to the fine work of our treasurer, Betty, we won that category. 

We began the competition, battling two bots at a time. Each bot was given three minutes to knock out the other. If time ran out before that could happen, we let the audience decide who won. Thanks to our great decorations, we had the upper hand, so we only had to battle twice. The first battle, our controller, Ashley, managed to steer the robot flawlessly and knock the back-plate off of our opponents. We made it to the final round, for first place against Cell Tech. Luckily, our robot hadn’t received much damage at all. Theirs, however, was missing a blade on their weapon. Our robots danced around each other once the round had started, but unfortunately, our back-plate started to fall off. Ironic from our first fight. We got a few good hits in against Cell Tech, but our plate eventually fell off, exposing our wires. We had lost, but in spirit, we won! 

Thank you to the NIU Robotics club for hosting a fun event and creating an opportunity for clubs to mingle with one another. Here’s to next year’s Battle of the Bots, where SWE will claim first place!

-Kara Murphy, Internal Vice President