The seventh annual Southworks Robotics & Engineering Olympics, held at South Suburban College on April 12, engaged area students in an engineering and robotics competition. Martin Leedy, a senior at Marian, built and drove a robot that won a robot sumo match at the event.
Homewood-Flossmoor and Marian Catholic high school students competed against teams across the region as they solved challenges, raced, and battled with machines at the event. While some robots only required programming, testing and practice, students built others using various components.
The students competed in the following events:
- VEX Robotics: Robots are built, programmed and controlled to compete and complete complex challenges in a ring.
- Maze Runner: Sphero BOLT robots are programmed to navigate a maze as quickly and precisely as possible, restarting from the beginning if they leave the maze or cross lines.
- Pathfinder: Fully autonomous robots follow a path without any help from their creators. The robot that makes it farther or faster wins.
- Sumo Survivor: Robots built by teams are piloted in a battle to push an opponent out of the ring.
- Catapult: Students make medieval models that launch beanbags into baskets. The baskets are assigned points for difficulty. Most points wins the competition.
- Chariot: New to this year’s event, a Sphero robot pulls a custom chariot around a course in a three-lap race.
President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners Toni Preckwinkle offered words of encouragement while spectating and told the crowd, “I’m a history teacher, not a science teacher, so this is all amazing to me.”
The SouthWorks Robotics & Engineering Olympics was a collaborative effort by OAI Inc., Governors State University, the Chicago Southland Economic Development Corporation, South Suburban College, and 3 Seeds Mentoring Group. Amazon, the Chicago Workforce Partnership, and Homewood Chick-fil-A sponsored the event.