The Rutgers IEEE VexU Robotics division competed in the Widener University Robotics tournament in Chester, Pennsylvania against teams from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. RIEEE brought two teams, SKAR (Scarlet Knights at Rutgers) and RUSK (Rutgers University Scarlet Knights) to this competition. The teams consisted of:
• Tim Petersen, ECE-20’
• Israel Jackson, MAE-20’
• Agam Modasiya, MAE-22’
• Jack Lowry, ECE-23’
• Akash Pathuri, ECE-23’
• Rakesh Warrier, RBS-23’
• Josh Chung, CS-23’
• John Plaras, ECE-21’
• Haolin Jim, CS-23’
• Karun Kanda, CS-22’
• Felix Shames, ECE-22’
• Damian Modzelewski, MAE-21’
The game in this competition consisted of stacking cubes in corners and placing cubes in towers. The first 45 seconds of each match are autonomous, while the rest of the match is driver control. The team ran into some issues at the start of the competition with their autonomous program, but they were able to debug and practice overnight. They placed third in the skills challenge, as well as third in qualifiers. During the first round of eliminations, they earned a bye week. They then beat the College of Southern Maryland 18-16 in the semi-finals. They went on to face NJIT in a best of three Finals. Twice in a row, NJIT was defeated 25-16, 44-41. With these wins they secured the Tournament Champions award along with the design award for their outstanding Engineering Notebook. The team is planning on attending the Cardinal Classic competition in Baltimore, Maryland on January 25th where they hope to qualify for the World Championship.