After multiple years of success building and competing with autonomous snowplows, Intelligent Systems Club members wanted a new challenge. Looking to transition to a project with a larger scope, increased potential for connecting with industry partners and more relevance for the future careers of their members, the student robotics team decided they would compete against other universities to build and race an autonomous go-kart. With many of their members looking to build careers in AI vehicles, this new challenge seemed like a great fit. But after years of fine tuning the same project, starting from scratch on a completely new concept was not easy.
“It took a lot of whiteboard — drawing and erasing and brainstorming to get something nailed down. And then to actually carry through, it was a huge effort,” says software and engineering lead Andrew Ealovega. “This is effectively a car. I mean, we are treating it as such, using a lot of technologies that you’d see in a vehicle. And so it was a really big challenge to get that off the ground.”
With the obstacles they faced along the way, ISC leaned on students who came before them. UM-Dearborn alumni, not only from their own team but other engineering clubs as well, provided guidance and support. “A lot of the alumni that ended up helping were actually from the electric racing team. That was a cool, different perspective, and they ended up being very, very, very helpful and kind of making everything align,” says Ealovega.
After developing a concept and constructing the design came testing. Lots and lots of testing.
“Software starts off as a simulation. Then being able to test it on the cart in the air and then getting mechanical done and electrical done, and then being able to actually get it on the ground and running. Then we test and validate that, yes, our system does, in fact, work, and it is worth taking it to competition,” explains electrical lead and former president Laura Sas.
After two years of preparation, it was time to see how they stacked up against the competition. In May of this year, the team traveled to Indiana for the Autonomous Karting Series National Grand Prix at Purdue University. With two days to practice on the course alongside other prestigious engineering programs from across the country, the team prepared. And for their first competition, they exceeded expectations.
“Actually seeing all the effort and all that work, it was pretty magical. We had really high hopes. And then of course, like every competition, you actually run a vehicle constantly for a couple of days, you always run into issues. And for us, we had a few hardware issues. — you know, first year problems, I expected something to go wrong,” says Ealovega.
On a tight clock until race time, the team came together to find the issue and address it. Ealovega reminiscences on the “team building exercise” that being stressed and under pressure created.
