Group C9

The problem

The course

Seven tasks, two levels, two minutes — and a course that would tell the robot what to do but never where it was.

A community garden’s caretaker leaves for the season. His plants still need tending, so the College of Engineering is asked for a robot that can do the rounds without him. Every team built one, and every robot was judged on a scale model of his garden.

The model is not a simplification. It has a compost drum that resists being turned, a bucket of apples heavy enough to unbalance a small robot, a window that sticks, and a wall around the whole thing.

Three-dimensional render of the competition course: a garden with a compost drum, tree stump and flower beds on the lower level, a brick wall and ramp leading up to a greenhouse with a sliding window, three fertilizer levers, a humidifier and a produce table. A red line traces the robot's path.
The 2025 course, with the team’s planned path in red. The garden sits on the lower level and the greenhouse above it, joined by the ramp on the right. How that path was actually driven is taken apart in the software section.

Two levels, one ramp

The garden sits on the lower level and the greenhouse above it, joined by a ramp. Tasks are split across both, so the route crosses the ramp carrying the apple bucket — the robot has to climb an incline while holding a payload high enough to change where its weight sits.

The team measured the climb themselves: 14.04° of incline, needing 1.53 lb of driving force at an estimated 4.23 lb of robot. That calculation is what chose the motors.

What the course asked for

  1. Start on the light

    React to a red light in the floor, then press the start button.

  2. Rotate the compost drum

    A full turn against a real load — and back to where it started, for bonus.

  3. Carry the apple bucket

    Lift it off a tree stump, climb the ramp with it, and set it down on the high table.

  4. Press the humidifier button

    Read whether a floor light is red or blue, then press the button that matches.

  5. Flip the fertilizer lever

    Ask the course which of three levers, flip that one down, hold, then lift it back.

  6. Open and close the window

    Slide the greenhouse window fully open, then shut it again.

  7. Press the final button

    Return to where it started and stop the clock.

Most tasks carried a harder version worth more: returning the compost drum to where it started, choosing the correct lever rather than any lever, placing the bucket on the high table rather than in the crate.

What it had to fit inside

Footprint
9" × 9"at the start of the run
Height
12"
Time
2:00for everything
Controller
Proteusno modifications allowed
Budget
$160finished with $36.99 left
Control
Autonomousno contact once it started

What the course would tell it

The robot was not alone out there. A radio link — the Robot Control System — connected it to the course, and the course answered questions.

It would say

  • Which of the three fertilizer levers to flip
  • Whether a lever had actually been flipped
  • When the run was over

It would not say

  • Where the robot was
  • Which way it was facing

Later years of this course would hand the robot its own coordinates. This one did not. The robot could ask what to do and confirm that it had done it, but never once learn where it stood — and it had two minutes to touch seven specific things scattered across two floors.