UW Robotics Team

History

The UW Robotics Team was founded as two separate entities in the summer of 2003 by enterprising engineering students looking for a way to explore their interest in robotics. These two teams soon decided to merge into one cohesive team which would be active year round. Since then, the team's projects have progressed in scale from simple autonomous mini-sumo robots to the GPS-equipped RoboRacer and "Ares", to our newest projects such as our recent entries in the Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition.

The UW Robotics Team has been expanding exponentially ever since its inception. With 30 to 40 active members a term, the team is very popular among undergraduate students of all disciplines. Our labs started out as being little more than a spot in the WEEF lab during lunch. Soon after, the team was able to borrow shelf space in one of the labs belonging to a professor. The team eventually moved in to E3-2103-B, and now its current home in E5-2003.

Equipment and development tools were obtained through a combination of donations from departments, purchases through WEEF (Waterloo Engineering Endowment Fund) and MEF (Mathematics Endowment Fund) funding, and corporate sponsorship. In 2004, the Mechatronics department generously donated surplus lab equipment in the form of two oscilloscopes, two digital multimeters, two function generators, and two power supplies. These and tools like them have been invaluable in making the team successful in its ever more complex endeavors in competitive robotics.

The UW Robotics Team does not restrict itself to a certain set of fixed competitions every year. Rather, it is decided each term which competitions will be entered by the team. Over the years, the competitions entered have become more and more complex and challenging.

More information about our projects, past and current, can be found on our projects page.