I feel really privileged to be
part of Team Brainstorm taking part in Eurobot, an amateur international
robotics competition that promotes innovation, technology, and creativity among
young people.
Our team is made up of several
students from the Faculty of Science and Technology at Middlesex University
London, and there are currently 3 Student Learning Assistants (SLAs) in the
team.
Team Brainstorm was the
brainchild of Adam Jazebak, former Computer Science SLA who has now graduated.
He noted that although MDX University students did well at the Eurobot
competitions, they never achieved top positions.
He realised that students
entered the competition to show off their individual skills, which was great,
but he was convinced that Middlesex University could progress in the
competition through effective student collaborations.
Whereas Adam was very
knowledgeable in computer programming, he approached me to support him based on
my robotics skills. Our collaborative efforts confirmed his conviction.
Earlier this year, Team
Brainstorm was placed third at the UK competition in London after being
presented an award for innovation by the international judge Hendrik Hostombe
from Dresden. The team was invited to the competition in Serbia as
international guests and also participated in the World Finals in La Roche Sur
Yon, France.
On graduating from MDX, Adam
handed over the responsibility of Team Brainstorm to me and to date, our
collaboration consists of 15 Middlesex University students from both the Computer
Science Department and Mechatronics Department including one GAA, two Masters
students and 3 First Year students.
The next competition (Eurobot
2019 - Atom Factories) is inspired by the classification of atomic elements
proposed by Dmitri Mendeleev, and we have to build autonomous robotic systems
to solve the set tasks within a specified time.
Every member of Team
Brainstorm brings their own skills and expertise, and are responsible for
various tasks in building the robotic system. We are still far from getting our
robot to life, but thanks to our collaboration, we now have a prototype.
We were faced with a few
challenges at the onset which were mainly scheduling issues based on time
clashes. We had to get organised quickly and introduce “compulsory
time” when
we meet and ensure minutes of our meetings were posted promptly on SLACK, a
software designed to facilitate teamwork.
The success of our
collaboration lies in the reason we decided to participate in this competition
which was to gain practical design manufacturing and engineering skills
required in the industry, whilst connecting with like-minded students across
the university.
We are grateful to be
sponsored by Pozyx, Ultimaker, Maxon Motor, and the Faculty of Science and
Technology at Middlesex University. We are very enthusiastic and are aiming to
represent the University at the next Worlds finals in France.
Chibuike Okpaluba
MEng Mechatronics
SLA
