UW Robotics Teams sweeps this year's Robot Racing competition

Thursday, July 30, 2015

UW Robotics Teams sweeps this year's Robot Racing competition

The 2015 International Autonomous Robot Racing Challenge is now complete, and it was a very exciting event with multiple teams showing big gains in terms of racing autonomy.  The weather was rather wet on Friday, but Saturday was gorgeous, sunny and hot, and we had a great day of drag and circuit racing.  All teams demonstrated true autonomy on the drag course, and both Waterloo and Western completed the entire circuit course loop autonomously.

The UW Robotics team regained its title as champions of the International Autonomous Robot Racing Challenge, held in our very own B-lot on Saturday, July 18th this year. 

Beating out last year's winners, Georgia Tech, and much improved competition from both Western and WCI, the UW Robotics Team showed impressive and fully autonomous lane marking and street light detection, collision avoidance and motion planning throughout the event, and posted both the fastest drag race time and the best circuit race lap time. 

It was a great event again, and many thanks to our volunteers and sponsors (including Aeryon, ITS Canada, Kik, WatCAR, the MME department and UW Engineering), without whom we couldn't make it happen!

Remote video URL

Results

The 2015 competition is now complete, and the breakdown of the results are as follows.

Design Competition

1.  Waterloo – 92 points

2.  Georgia Tech – 83 points

3.  Waterloo Collegiate  -75 points

4.  Western    – 67 points

Drag Race

1.  Waterloo – 100 points  – fastest time 11.5 s

2. Waterloo Collegiate – 30 points – 38.1 s

3.  Georgia Tech – 10 points  – 2:00.03

4.  Western – 8 points – 2:20.9

Circuit Race

1.  Waterloo – 200 points – 1.5 laps completed

2.  Western – 180 points – 0.4 laps completed

3.  Waterloo Collegiate – 160 points – 0.35 laps completed

4.  Georgia Tech – 140 points – DNS

Overall

1.  University of  Waterloo Robotics Team – 392 points, $ 3,000 – First Place Prize

2.   Waterloo Collegiate Institute Viking Robotics – 265 points, $ 1,000 – Second Place Prize

3.  University of Western Ontario WEBots – 255 points, $ 500 – Third Place Prize

4.  Georgia Tech Robojackets – 233 points, $ 500 Judge’s Discretionary Prize

The awards are based on overall performance in all three categories, design, drag and circuit races, based on the point system defined in the rules.  Each team that registers individually, regardless of school affiliation, is eligible to win an award.