C.R.A.W.LAB

When: Thursday, April 21st
Where: Oliver Hall Main Lobby
RSVP: Dr. Joshua Vaughan

Festival International de Louisiane is an important event for Lafayette. It brings artists from all over the world to share their talents. Upcoming bands work hard to be invited to such events. Luckily, MCHE 201 students have the skills to design and build robots to help them become a part of the Festival.

The Competition

On April 21st, beginning at 4:45pm, the Festival International de Louisiane contest will be held in the Oliver Hall Main Lobby. There will be two events. Prior to the two events, Dr. Vaughan will give a short presentation introducing the contest.

Design Review:

From 5 — 6pm, a panel of judges will perform a design review of each machine. The teams must describe their machines quickly and clearly to the judges that visit, who will evaluate each team on aesthetics, ingenuity, and presentation.

Festival International de Louisiane Contest:

Following the design review, the student robots will compete in a head-to-head competition on the representation of the Festival International de Louisiane shown in Figure 1. The robots have thirty seconds to make it to the Make it to the Main Stage, Keep the Crowd Rocking, Dismiss Hecklers, Collect Merchandise Revenue, and Collect Festival International Pins.

Competition Details

The student robots can earn, or lose, points based on their robot's performance in each category of the Festival International de Louisiane contest. The details of each is listed below.

Make it to the Main Stage: Prior to the each competition round, each team will be given five band members (Lego minifigures). For each band member placed into the main stage, the team will earn 10 points. For each one placed into the secondary stage, the team will earn 5 points.

Keep the Crowd Rocking: There is a crowd of fans (plastic bowling pin) in each zone. The team must keep the crowd rocking by keeping this bowling pin upright. For each crowd remaining upright in the team’s zone at the end of the round, the team will earn 20 points.

Dismiss Hecklers: Near the crowd of fans in each zone are two hecklers (plastic bowling pins). The team should dismiss these hecklers. For each heckler that is not dismissed by completely removing it from the team’s zone, the team will be penalized -10 points.

Collect Merchandise Revenue: In each zone, surrounding the stage, there is merchandise revenue (sponges) that teams can collect. For each piece of merchandise revenue collected and placed completely in the team’s Merchandise Account, the team will earn 10 points.

Collect Festival Pins: Collecting Festival International pins is a tradition of the festival. On the festival grounds, there are available pins (toy blocks) that can be collected. Each pin completely collected into a team’s zone will earn 10 points. Pins that are only partially in a zone earn no points.

Acknowledgements

SparkFun Electronics was kind enough to give a substantial discount on the robot kits used in this class. We are grateful for their support.

For more information, see the full set of competition rules.