Student engineers from two colleges or universities square off to build radio-controlled robots that are capable performing a specific task. Each team -- assisted by a single robotics expert -- has a single day to build a robot from scratch materials. At the end of the day the two robots battle it out in a timed match.
In episode 211, teams from Vanderbilt University and the University of Pittsburgh are asked to design and build a robot that can (1) contain golf balls on board, and (2) move to various miniature golf holes and shoot until the cup has been made. Vanderbilt designs a robot with a barrel and plunger mechanism activated by a linear actuator and a pneumatically hinged ram, while Pittsburgh designs a robot with a bolt action rod that feeds golf balls into a spinning roller and out through the barrel.
