Cedarville robotics team wins national competition

The Autonomous Robotics Competition, hosted at the ASEE annual conference, involves six to 10 engineering teams with freshmen and sophomore students who design, build and compete with robots that fit a unique yearly prompt and criteria, including strict dimension limits with a $500 budget.

“Competitions like these bring out the practical aspect of engineering that, at the end of the day, we have to get projects done, and we’re capable of doing so,” said advisor Clint Kohl, senior professor of computer engineering. “Oftentimes we engineers can dream high and lofty, but sometimes we have to stop dreaming and start building our dreams into reality. The first step of that process is believing that we can, and the teaching moments for that is this competition’s greatest strength.”

Kohl first heard about this event when he served as a member of the ASEE. He saw what this underclassmen-only potential experience could offer to students and “how the competition could be used to bolster confidence and push students out of their comfort zones, no matter what branch of engineering students might be a part of.”

“We have a lot of competitions at Cedarville that are connected to the upperclassmen, such as their Senior Design Projects,” Kohl said. “But we’re getting so many students who have participated in programs and tournaments in high school who are itching at a chance to be challenged before their senior year, and the ASEE Competition provides that. It helps prepare them for the more challenging aspects of their majors and hone their skills as future engineers.”

Members of the 2024 winning team are team captain Jacob Potheir, Josiah Mulligan, Sarah Heiple, Isaac Creswell, Ethan Wilson, Christian Di Spigna, Bryant Buell, Albie Morrison, Bailey LaRue, Gabriel Sheppard, Brady Schick, Alan Golden, Nii Noi Hanson-Nortey, Alex Bishop, Timothy Deibler, Daniel Dukundane, Logan Herschberger, Nicholas Stokes and Myles Young.

All majors from the School of Engineering can try out for the team, including computer science majors, computer engineers, mechanical engineers and electrical engineers.