University of Bolton engineering students design the ultimate fighting robot

University of Bolton students teamed up to design a fearsome ‘Robot Wars’ style fighting machine.

The two teams from the School of Engineering were given a design brief by Labman Automation to design a combat robot, weighing no more than one kilogramme, with a budget of just £200.

Labman Automation are a robotics company based in the North East of England, annually they host an event called ‘Labman FightFest’ to encourage students to be hands on in robotics, automation and engineering, to find out more visit https://www.labmanautomation.com/fightfest/.

The teams designed prototypes in less than three months and the winner was a dangerous looking machine dubbed ‘The Black Widow’ which featured a rotating ‘buzz-saw’ style blade to cause maximum damage to opponents.

Electrical and electronic engineering student Yusuf Alghamadi, who led the successful team, said: “Everyone involved found this external assignment a great challenge as it had to be designed to the company’s specifications and be operated by remote control.

“I had never done anything like that before and the team had a lot of technical difficulties and challenges to overcome in a short space of time.”

Yusuf, aged 40, who is from Saudi Arabia, who is due to graduate from his degree course in January, said: “We had to research the materials and imagine how the robot would be able to fight effectively and cause the most damage.”

Yusuf’s team, Leonardo Calzolai, Erfan Moghaddasi and Sorin-liviu Velicu, adapted a PlayStation 2 controller to operate their prototype which was able to manoeuvre quickly to gain an advantage over its opponents.

Dr Felicia Ong, Operational Lead (Mechanical and Electrical Engineering) at the University of Bolton, said: “The module brought the industrial experience to students and they found it extremely useful as it also provided feedback about their assessment and the comments from the company were very positive.

“The students were also able to understand the level of expectation from a company when they set an industry brief.”