The final competition of my Mechatronics class had a simple goal: bring all the wooden cubes to our side of the board.

My team of three—Set Enable Interrupt—created a bright pink robot plastered with memes. Dubbed Kirbotty McFinioFace after professors Brian Kirby and Ben Finio, the robot featured a pair of sweeping arms and a suite of sensors to navigate the board. Despite the shenanigans, our neat breadboards and reliable mechanism brought us just shy of first place.

A highlight reel of Kirbotty's performance at the end-of-semester competition.

I wired the upper breadboard to look like a cat. Yes, it’s electrically functional!

The lower breadboard housed the H bridges to control the drive wheels.

Kirbotty in the match-ready configuration.

The arms were designed to deploy forward by gravity when the robot stopped suddenly.

After deploying, the arms would swing out to sweep cubes back as the robot retreated. The three paper implements were designed to confuse opponents’ sensors.