Get ready, get set for racing robots

The freshman engineers will hold their Robot Design Competition on Friday, Nov. 11 in Old Chapel at 1:30 p.m. The 89 students in ESC100 (Introduction to Engineering) have been divided into 29 design teams.

Their mission: to design and build a robot from a kit that included balsa wood, electric motors, switches and other parts.

"The robots are an application of the design theory students studied in class," said James Hedrick, electrical and computer engineering lecturer. The teams will race their machine against others in a double elimination contest to determine which machine can complete three laps on a table top race track (reversing automatically) in the shortest time.

The contest promises to be fast-paced and fun.