Sierra Madre Middle School Robotics students attended the 38th annual ME72 robotics competition on Beckman Mall at Caltech . The event is the culmination of a mechanical engineering course in which teams design and build robots to compete for the high score in a challenging course.
PEF has sponsored this field trip for Robotics students district wide for many years. In addition to seeing the competition, the students are able to walk around the famed campus and sometimes even stop by a lab or maker space. This trip is just one example of the long standing partnership between PEF and Caltech.
As with many of Caltech’s time-honored traditions, the annual ME72 Engineering Design Competition pushes students to the limits of possibility. Unlike other Caltech traditions, ME72 involves ball-launching, self-driving, all-terrain robots—which occasionally burst into flames.
This year’s challenge Airship Quadball:
“Five teams of 5 team members each are challenged to design and build up to three remote-controlled (R/C) and semi-autonomous, lighter-than-air (LTA) vehicles (airships) to compete in an aerial “quad ball” competition. Teams score points by intercepting neutrally buoyant, 15-in-diameter balloons and passing them through goals on their opponent’s side of the field”
