RoboGrinder is an interdisciplinary, student-run, design team featuring students from numerous Virginia Tech College of Engineering departments. The team is a proud, self-motivated group whose objective is to design and fabricate a squadron of semi-autonomous robots for aerial and terrestrial combat.

Every year, RoboGrinder competes against more than 200 universities in the RoboMaster competition in Shenzhen, China.

The 70-member RoboGrinder team has students from ECE, ME, ISE and CS. Since 2016, RoboGrinder has been part of the ECE AMP Lab. In 2016-2017, the team won third prize in The Grand Final.

In 2018, the team won first prize in the International competition and second prize in the Grand Final. Other teams from the Western Hemisphere that compete in RoboMasters are the University of Washington, UCSD, PSU, CMU, the University of Alberta, Purdue, and the University of Maryland. Currently, RoboGrinder is the champion team of this region.

Throughout the design process, RoboGrinder members apply their academic knowledge to solve various robotic challenges.

In the ECE Branch, students use their embedded system, circuit design, and advanced soldering skills. One example from circuit design is the super capacitor. In order to create a speed advantage in the competition, members designed a super capacitor system that can provide 900 watts of power to augment a 22.4 V lithium battery.

The Mechanical Branch challenges students to use their knowledge of dynamics, CAD, manufacturing processes, deformable bodies, and analysis of design constraints to meet competition and fiscal demands.

The Computer Vision Branch challenges students to further develop their knowledge of data structures and various algorithms, and encourages students to learn OpenCV, new APIs, and machine learning techniques.

Within the Operating Branch, students from a range of academic disciplines hone their skills in project management, risk analysis, event planning, finance, and social outreach.

Congratulations to the advisors and members of our RoboGrinder team for their outstanding acheivement.

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