2.007 robots battle it out, revolutionary-style
On Thursday evening, just before nightfall, a revolution was afoot at MIT. The battleground was set, the munitions were stocked, the targets were marked, and the soldiers were … robots. As hundreds of spectators crowded into Johnson Athletic Center, 32 student-built robots, winnowed down from a field of 153, squared off in the annual competition for Course 2.007 (Design and Manufacturing), MIT’s popular undergraduate course in mechanical engineering. This year, instructors modeled the competition’s obstacle course after major landmarks from the American Revolution, including replicas of Boston’s North Church, Concord’s Old North Bridge, and a Boston Tea Party ship dubbed the H.M.S. Beaver. In head-to-head battles, robots sought to outscore their opponent by completing various tasks on the course, such as hanging small lanterns on the North Church steeple, pushing bags of tea off the wooden ship, scaling a steep hill to simulate Paul Revere’s ride, and hiding cannonballs under the Old North...