Hey everyone! I hope the spooky season has been delightful so far, especially for the Halloween lovers among us! While waiting for the Trick-or-Treating festivities to start and while being hard at work CADding and coding, everyone here at MARS has been partaking in some wonderful, spooky, downright ghoulish fun!
The (Volleyball) Battle Between the Mechanical + Computer/Electrical Subteams
At the beginning of the month, we decided that there was something we needed to settle: who was the best subteam? Mechanical and Computer subteam members came to Memorial Gym to win (at volleyball)! Even though the Mechanical subteam valiantly suffered bruised knees and wrists to be recognized as the best, the Computer/Electrical subteam won! It was quite the spook for the Mechanical subteam - maybe CS majors do touch grass once in a while! The Mechanical subteam will get their glory someday, but for right now, we shall wait and see!
Preliminary Design Review
Alas, not everything was all fun and games. Soon it was time to host the Preliminary Design Review. The Preliminary Design Review, often abbreviated as PDR, is a formal review we host every year to present the subteams' defined but not finalized robot designs and autonomy strategy to external reviewers; these reviewers are often experts in engineering. This review helps us get feedback on our progress and makes sure we are heading in the right direction. It also helps us in the competition, as it is one of the formal reviews required.
The comments that the external reviewers gave at the PDR were extremely helpful, and I want to thank all the external reviewers that came, which included: Dr. Joseph Zhu, Dr. Michael Momot, Mechanical Engineering graduate student Sarah Hemler, Dr. Devin Harris, Mr. Kemal Gokturk, Dr. Keith Williams, Dr. Nicola Bezzo, and our faculty advisor Dr. Natasha Smith.
Pumpkin Painting Social Event
After the PDR, members relaxed at the next GBM as they painted on big pumpkins (and one wheel? Not sure what that was about...). It turns out that a lot of our members are also artistically inclined! Although I have to say…there was a pumpkin painted with bloody Wall-Es, not sure what that also was about…
As the spooky season sadly comes to an end, we will start finalizing the robot design and its autonomy processes! Hope you all stick around for our November update and remember to follow our social media!
See you all again soon,
Cayla
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