Past Competitions

2010 - Total Recall

Total Recall’s theme was manufacturing, specifically manufacturing using the six sigma practice to minimize mistakes. The game involved scoring correct but not defective game pieces. Robots had to score golf balls of a certain color in bins, place traffic cones in stands, and sort plastic eggs by magnetism and then score the correct type plastic egg in those traffic cones. The color of the defective golf balls and whether the defective plastic eggs contained magnets or not was determined by having the robot read a data port and then displaying a signal to the drivers. Scoring defective products would reduce the team’s sigma, which multiplied their score. The winning robots had large containers capable of transporting many golf balls at once; some even had detachable containers to allow the robots to perform other tasks while the containers were filled. Determining which plastic eggs contained magnets proved to be quite difficult, although some teams created custom sensors capable of doing so.