UC San Diego Robotics organization to compete in new season of BattleBots

We sat down with the founders of Triton Competitive Robotics (TCR), mechanical engineering major Jeffrey Wang and Mahaela Johnson to discuss their student organization.

Q: Tell us about your organization in your own words:

M: Triton Competitive Robotics provides resources to students interested in building robots to enter into competitions. Students can pitch their idea for a competition to enter and then TCR will put together a team of students to work on a robot for the competition as well as provide workshops and funding.

J: Our mission really is to build and strengthen the robotics community here by making sure there’s nothing stopping someone that wants to pursue a robotics project. We’re working hard to make sure everyone has access to resources that will help them - and one way to do this is by collaborating with other organizations. For example, samcad, a student org that focuses on 3D modeling, just put on a very successful SOLIDWORKS workshop for us.

Q: Why did you decide to start this organization?

J: I remember attending an orientation freshman year and talking with someone about the lack of robotics student orgs on campus. I’ve since discovered them (IEEE does great work, for example,) but none of them really focused on the projects I wanted to pursue. Our goal is to fill that gap.

M: I was at home watching BattleBots and I thought, UCSD has an amazing engineering program and we’re more than capable of creating our own Battlebot; we should do this. Since then, the scope of our organization's interests has expanded to all robotics competitions.

Q: What projects is your organization working on right now?

M: We currently have two projects. One is a 3 lb autonomous fighting robot that we plan on entering into next year’s Robogames competition. Our other project is our BattleBots team which is being led by Jeffrey.

Q: How can interested students get involved?

J: All of our project meetings are open to the public (you can find the times/locations on Facebook or by emailing us.) Currently, all positions are filled for the two projects but as we start building we would potentially need more team members. Keep in mind that if you and some friends have a different competition you’re passionate about, we can help you compete!

Q: Contact info?

M: Find us on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/groups/tritonrobots/ or email either of us at mkj002@ucsd.edu and jewang@ucsd.edu

Interested in sponsoring or mentoring? Send an email to tcr.ucsd@gmail.com.