A new batch of mechanical engineering students officially completed their semester-long ME 2110 journey with the final robotics event on April 11. This infamous competition is an extension of ME 2110: Creative Decisions and Design, a graduation requirement for all mechanical engineering students at Tech.
Second-year students learn creative problem-solving skills and mechanical principles through hands-on experience as a baseline for upper-level courses and their future careers in engineering. The result is a fully functional robot that competes against other teams to win the most points and fulfill the competition objective.
Before the start of the design review portion, students mingled around Love Atrium, setting up their stalls, putting on last touches, and celebrating the relieving finale to their hard-earned efforts throughout the past semester with a pizza party. But not every team could afford to relax just yet.
“Right now [is the most stressful]. We have arms that swing out, and [a] solenoid pulls on a string on his arms that come off, and all throughout testing up until today, it worked. But all of a sudden today, the solenoid doesn’t have enough power to pull on the string, and so a couple of my group members are trying to make last-second changes while I just kind of hold it down here,” said Anthony Grosu, third-year ME and Sugar Snap Peas team member.
Last-minute technical challenges are no surprise to most teams, however. Jack Walton, second-year ME and LeBloc team member, recounted similar difficulties in a past sprint, which is a mini-competition that acts as a checkpoint during the building phase.
“[In] our first competition, another team damaged both of our arms. During the second sprint, we couldn’t really fix them, so we had to go back into the next competition with just part of our robot broken. We had no time to fix it, so that was really stressful,” Walton said.
After the design review, the next portion of the event featured the robots in action on the competition floor as faculty, parents, classmates and friends lined around three-story balconies above, ready to cheer on their students and respective robots.
This year, the competition was Minecraft-themed, just in time for the new movie release. Some students took their robots and team spirit to the next level with matching costumes, accessories and decorations.
Cristiano Profumo, second-year ME, wore matching bee headbands with his fellow Blazing Bees team members.
“We wanted to come up with something fun, and we also wanted it to be on theme for the competition, which is Minecraft this year. So we picked a mob or an animal that we thought was fun. It also fits with Georgia Tech, so we fit our robot to our team name; it’s colored like a bee, we have some flames in the bottom of it, and it’s covered with lots of stickers to make it look fun,” Profumo said.
Despite its daunting reputation, many students found value in the competition and the challenges they learn to overcome in hindsight.
“Honestly, just have fun with it. Don’t stress about it. Like, it is a stressful class and it’s gonna be time-consuming, but at the end of the day, just use it as a learning experience and try to get the positive from everything and it’s gonna be fun in the end,” said Grecia Nicole Torres, third-year ME and The Creepers team member.
Many echoed her advice to future ME students. Thinking about the big picture and staying focused on your tasks seemed to be a popular takeaway from the competition portion.
“Become a prototyping instructor (PI) with the Flowers Invention studio. That’s super helpful. Our team probably did 95% of our work on our actual building, minus testing in the invention studio wood room. It also allows you to come after hours because it’s open 24 hours with PIs,” Profumo added.
Another cohort of future mechanical engineers emerged with the culmination of the final competition round. The Spring 2025 winners of the ME 2110 competition were the Redstone Engineers.