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?
