A group of Robotics and Manufacturing students will be competing at this weekend’s St. Paul Winter Carnival in the Institute of Navigation’s Autonomous Snow Plow Competition. The competing schools include: University of Minnesota, University of Michigan, Dunwoody College of Technology, Ohio University, Wright State University and Miami University (of Ohio).
The competition will take place from 8 a.m. to noon, Saturday, Jan. 29, and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday, June 30, in downtown St. Paul in front of the public library. Dunwoody’s competition slot won’t be announced until 7:30 a.m. tomorrow morning. We will post video for those who can’t make it to the live competition.
In addition, the Dunwoody team and robotic plow will march in the Winter Carnival parade, which starts at 2 p.m.
For the competition, schools must design a robotic snow plow that will remove snow from two fields. The first field is a straight line “I Field” which is meant to simulate a city sidewalk. The second field is a “U-Shape” which is far more challenging. The following students will be competing in this year’s challenge: Michael Carnis (ASRO), James Jorgenson (MDES), Keith McClelland (ASRO), Joshua Moses (ASRO), Randy Taklo (ASRO) and Nigel Ystenes (ASRO). Faculty member John McShannock, Tim Flugum and E.J. Daigle are advising the team.
For more information and to monitor the results check out: http://www.autosnowplow.com.