{"68650":{"#nid":"68650","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Two Georgia Tech Student Teams Excel at RoboBoat Competition","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETwo Georgia Tech RoboBoat\nTeams made it to the finals in the 4th International RoboBoat Competition, held\nJune 9-12 in Virginia Beach. Georgia Tech Aerospace System Design Laboratory placed 3rd\u0026nbsp;and the Georgia Tech Savannah Robots placed 7th\u0026nbsp;out\nof 15 university teams competing. Georgia Tech was the only school represented\nby two independent teams, and the first to have two teams place in the top\nhalf.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe\u0026nbsp;RoboBoat\nCompetition is a student robotics\u0026nbsp;challenge in which teams design and race\nautonomous surface vehicles through an aquatic obstacle course. The Association of Unmanned\nVehicle Systems Foundation and the Office of Naval Research jointly sponsored\nthe event.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EDuring this year\u0027s competition,\n150 students from across the U.S., Taiwan and Indonesia competed for the title\nof \u0022Best RoboBoat\u0022 and $20,000 in prize money.\u0026nbsp; The robotic\nboats were asked to perform a series of progressively difficult tasks that\nsimulate the types of activities that are expected of robotic craft built for\nthe U.S. Navy and Coast Guard.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe Georgia Tech Aerospace\nSystem Design Laboratory\u2019s Marine Robotics Group took home third place and\n$3,000. The team is made up of Aerospace Engineering graduate students Alan\nSmith, Sean Culpepper, David Moroniti, Eric Van Gehuchten and Pierre Valdez;\nElectrical and Computer Engineering graduate student Edward Macdonald; Computer\nscience undergraduates Patrick Dillon and Alex Okonishnikov; Mechanical\nengineering undergraduates Chris Taylor and Jeff Carpenter. The team\u2019s advisor\nis Professor Dimitri Mavris from the School of Aerospace Engineering.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe Marine Robotics Group\u2019s autonomous\nsurface vehicle, Captain Planet, was designed to have superior performance, robust\nlow-level controls and to complete the mission in the minimum amount of time,\nsaid Santiago Balestrini, a research faculty member at the Aerospace System\nDesign Laboratory, and the team\u2019s technical advisor.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAchieving the third objective\nproved difficult due to the complexity of these robots and the changing\nenvironmental conditions, but the team most definitely excelled in achieving\nthe first two,\u201d Balestrini said. \u0026nbsp;\u201cGT-MRG\u2019s\ndesign was the second lightest and produced more thrust than most designs,\ngiving it a large advantage in thrust-to-weight ratio, an often neglected, yet a\nkey performance parameter of the judge\u2019s scoring rubric.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe Georgia Tech Savannah\nRobotics team earned 7th\u0026nbsp;place and $500. Advised by Fumin Zhang,\nassistant professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the\nSavannah team is made up of Electrical and Computer Engineering graduate\nstudents Steven Bradshaw, Dongsik Chang, Shayok Mukhopadhyay and Klimka\nSzwaykowska; Computer engineering undergraduate Will Crick; Electrical\nengineering undergraduates Valerie Bazie, Lisa Hicks, Sean Maxon and Casey T.\nSmith.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe team\u0027s autonomous surface vehicle, Victoria,\nfeatured an onboard embedded computing system and a long-range wireless system,\nwhich\u0026nbsp;resulted in a significant reduction in weight and helped the team\nadvance\u0026nbsp;to the\u0026nbsp;final\u0026nbsp;round of competition.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u201cThis year\u2019s design included\na long range wireless system which prevented connectivity issues during runs,\u201d\nsaid Shayok Mukhopadhyay, a graduate student on the team. \u201cThis saved the team\nmission time and enabled us to perform multiple runs within a single time slot.\nAll of our technical changes, backed by our team spirit propelled us into the finals\nthis year.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETwo Georgia Tech RoboBoat Teams made it to the\nfinals in the 4th International RoboBoat Competition, held June 9-12 in\nVirginia Beach. Georgia Tech Aerospace System Lab placed 3rd\u0026nbsp;and the\nGeorgia Tech Savannah Robots placed 7th\u0026nbsp;out of 15 university teams competing.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Two Georgia Tech RoboBoat Teams made it to the finals in the 4th International RoboBoat Competition."}],"uid":"27462","created_gmt":"2011-06-29 15:29:03","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:09:40","author":"Liz Klipp","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2011-06-29T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2011-06-29T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"68652":{"id":"68652","type":"image","title":"Georgia Tech Aerospace System Lab\u2019s Marine Robotics Group","body":null,"created":"1449177185","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:13:05","changed":"1475894597","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:43:17","alt":"Georgia Tech Aerospace System Lab\u2019s Marine Robotics Group","file":{"fid":"192625","name":"marine_robotics_group.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/marine_robotics_group_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/marine_robotics_group_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":269738,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/marine_robotics_group_0.jpg?itok=NDipPFD_"}},"68653":{"id":"68653","type":"image","title":"Georgia Tech Aerospace System Lab\u0027s Marine Robotics Group - June  2011","body":null,"created":"1449177185","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:13:05","changed":"1475894597","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:43:17","alt":"Georgia Tech Aerospace System Lab\u0027s Marine Robotics Group - June  2011","file":{"fid":"192626","name":"marine_robotics_group_-_2.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/marine_robotics_group_-_2_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/marine_robotics_group_-_2_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2500324,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/marine_robotics_group_-_2_0.jpg?itok=8Ct21jvf"}},"68651":{"id":"68651","type":"image","title":"Georgia Tech Savannah Robots - June 2011","body":null,"created":"1449177185","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:13:05","changed":"1475894597","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:43:17","alt":"Georgia Tech Savannah Robots - June 2011","file":{"fid":"192624","name":"savannah_roboboat_-_2.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/savannah_roboboat_-_2_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/savannah_roboboat_-_2_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":3821355,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/savannah_roboboat_-_2_0.jpg?itok=epGJMR7E"}}},"media_ids":["68652","68653","68651"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/mrg.gatech.edu\/wordpress\/","title":"Georgia Tech Aerospace System Lab\u2019s Marine Robotics Group"},{"url":"http:\/\/gtsr.gtsav.gatech.edu\/robots\/asv\/victoria","title":"on Georgia Tech Savannah Robotics"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.auvsifoundation.org\/AUVSI\/FOUNDATION\/Competitions\/RoboBoat\/Default.aspx","title":"Internal RoboBoat Competition"}],"groups":[{"id":"1317","name":"News Briefs"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"13571","name":"College of Engineering; Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering; Georgia Tech-Savannah; Georgia Tech Aerospace Systems Lab; Marine Robotics Group; Georgia Tech Savannah; RoboBoat Competition"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Tech Media Relations\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELaura Diamond\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:laura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Elaura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-894-6016\u003Cbr \/\u003EJason Maderer\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:maderer@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emaderer@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-660-2926\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["klipp@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}