UW Robotics
Room 2001, Engineering 5, 200 University Ave W. N2L 3E9 Waterloo, ON, Canada

Introducing our third Member Feature Monday: 2021 Team Lead Alaina Hansen! Program: Mechatronics 2024 Seasons: 2020, 2021 Subteam: Mechanical, Electrical... Positions: Team Lead (2021) Contributions: I joined the team in my 1A term and immediately got involved with the mechanical sub-team. In my first year on the team I contributed to the design and manufacturing of the antenna mount and encoder covers and led the neopixel LED array project. In 1B I contributed to the electrical sub-team, helping to design the CAN Transceiver and Localization boards, and assemble the Gimbtonomy board. Following that I went back to work with mechanical, and contributed to the drivetrain redesign, and worked on the science mechanism as well. As Team Lead I have worked on creating our new team website, expanding outreach initiatives, sponsorship, team bonding, improving our advertising and social media presence, preparation for URC 2021, and our return to campus following the COVID-19 shutdown. Words of Wisdom: Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts. - Winston Churchill #waterlooengineering #universityofwaterloo See more

For our second Member Feature Monday: 2020 Team Lead Nathan Madonia! Program: Mechatronics 2022 Seasons: 2018, 2019, 2020 Subteam: Mechanical... Positions: Mechanical Lead (2019), Team Lead (2020) Notable Co-ops: Bendix, Matician Contributions: I initially joined the team near the end of 1A to help the team with manufacturing and quickly got involved with the mechanical design. After that I continued to seek new projects with the team and dive deeper into the University Rover Challenge. On the design side I led the creation of; the notorious 2018 board drawer, the 2019 rover-bogie drive train, the 2020 redesigned chassis system and the 2020 arm turntable. As a mechanical lead in 2019, I loved teaching new members about manufacturing, walking them through the engineering design process and holding CAD reviews! As the team lead, I was just glad to support the efforts of my fantastic team members. Words of Wisdom: There were some late nights with the robotics team, but it was worth it to be working on interesting problems alongside other amazing engineering students. Definitely a fantastic experience. #waterlooengineering #universityofwaterloo See more

Introducing our third Member Feature Monday: 2021 Team Lead Alaina Hansen! Program: Mechatronics 2024 Seasons: 2020, 2021 Subteam: Mechanical, Electrical... Positions: Team Lead (2021) Contributions: I joined the team in my 1A term and immediately got involved with the mechanical sub-team. In my first year on the team I contributed to the design and manufacturing of the antenna mount and encoder covers and led the neopixel LED array project. In 1B I contributed to the electrical sub-team, helping to design the CAN Transceiver and Localization boards, and assemble the Gimbtonomy board. Following that I went back to work with mechanical, and contributed to the drivetrain redesign, and worked on the science mechanism as well. As Team Lead I have worked on creating our new team website, expanding outreach initiatives, sponsorship, team bonding, improving our advertising and social media presence, preparation for URC 2021, and our return to campus following the COVID-19 shutdown. Words of Wisdom: Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts. - Winston Churchill #waterlooengineering #universityofwaterloo See more

Starting us off strong with our first Member Feature Monday: 2019 Team Lead Fraser Robinson! Program: Mechatronics 2021 Seasons: 2017, 2018, 2019 Subteam: Mechanical... Positions: Mechanical Lead (2018), Team Lead (2019) Notable Co-ops: Apple PD, Clearpath Robotics Contributions: Joined in my 1A term and learned a wealth of mechanical information from an outstanding leadership team. Entering into 2A I designed the claw end-effector which was used on the 2018 and 2019 rovers and then became mechanical team lead for 8 months overseeing arm assembly. As the 2019 team lead I led efforts to redesign chassis and arm which saw the team score its highest ever System Acceptance Review score. Words of Wisdom: Seek out failure as fast as you can instead of letting it find you. Be patient with the team and with yourself. See more

For our second Member Feature Monday: 2020 Team Lead Nathan Madonia! Program: Mechatronics 2022 Seasons: 2018, 2019, 2020 Subteam: Mechanical... Positions: Mechanical Lead (2019), Team Lead (2020) Notable Co-ops: Bendix, Matician Contributions: I initially joined the team near the end of 1A to help the team with manufacturing and quickly got involved with the mechanical design. After that I continued to seek new projects with the team and dive deeper into the University Rover Challenge. On the design side I led the creation of; the notorious 2018 board drawer, the 2019 rover-bogie drive train, the 2020 redesigned chassis system and the 2020 arm turntable. As a mechanical lead in 2019, I loved teaching new members about manufacturing, walking them through the engineering design process and holding CAD reviews! As the team lead, I was just glad to support the efforts of my fantastic team members. Words of Wisdom: There were some late nights with the robotics team, but it was worth it to be working on interesting problems alongside other amazing engineering students. Definitely a fantastic experience. #waterlooengineering #universityofwaterloo See more

Board assembly underway

Starting us off strong with our first Member Feature Monday: 2019 Team Lead Fraser Robinson! Program: Mechatronics 2021 Seasons: 2017, 2018, 2019 Subteam: Mechanical... Positions: Mechanical Lead (2018), Team Lead (2019) Notable Co-ops: Apple PD, Clearpath Robotics Contributions: Joined in my 1A term and learned a wealth of mechanical information from an outstanding leadership team. Entering into 2A I designed the claw end-effector which was used on the 2018 and 2019 rovers and then became mechanical team lead for 8 months overseeing arm assembly. As the 2019 team lead I led efforts to redesign chassis and arm which saw the team score its highest ever System Acceptance Review score. Words of Wisdom: Seek out failure as fast as you can instead of letting it find you. Be patient with the team and with yourself. See more

Mechanical, Electrical, Software/Firmware and Leads team photo’s for Spring 2020

Happy first week of spring term! Unfortunately URC 2020 was canceled this year but we are looking forward to continuing to work towards URC 2021! Congratulations to all 35 teams that qualified with us this season!

Hello everyone, it is with a heavy heart we are sharing that the University Rover Challenge, our yearly competition has been cancelled due to COVID-19. These are exceptional times and we hope you and all your loved ones are staying safe and healthy amid this crisis. Despite this cancellation, the team is still working on projects remotely and we will keep you all updated in the coming months.

New to UW? Drop by the first two floors of E5 tomorrow, September 4th from 4:00-6:00PM for the SDC Design Team Open House! See our robots, talk to our leads, and learn how you can join our incredible team

This weekend teams from around the world will compete in the International Autonomous Robot Racing Challenge, and we're the hosts! Events take place Friday and Saturday and are open to the public. See you there!

Today we had the pleasure of attending a @delta.elevator barbecue for the Canada Day weekend! Huge thanks to Delta for having us and for being one of our leading sponsors in the 2019 season. Happy Canada Day everyone! @ Delta Elevator Co Ltd

The Canadian teams who attended URC 2019! Big congrats to @ryersonramsrobotics for the 2nd place finish. Our team has officially decided to apply for URC 2020 and hope to see you all next year!

With the driving team arriving back in Waterloo today that officially wraps up our 2019 Mars Rover season! Thank you to all our dedicated sponsors and hard working members for a great twelve months. This year the team had its highest ever score in the system acceptance review and science task (before penalties), a huge accomplishment for UW Mars Rover! Unfortunately, due to last minute failures the other three competition tasks did not go as well as hoped. The result was a 33 place finish of the 36 teams invited to the competition, keeping in mind that over 80 teams applied. While disappointed things didn't go as hoped the team is looking forward to building on the positives for a great season in 2020. New and improved designs will be coming soon, stay tuned!

Day 3! Last day of competition didn't go as hoped with some more electrical issues. Learned lots from the other teams and already looking forward to next year! Thank you to all our sponsors and faculty for your continued support

Day 2! Some unfortunate motor controller issues led to a disappointing result in extreme traversal, but that won't get us down! Encouraging arm control today makes us excited for the last day of competition tomorrow @ MDRS - Mars Desert Research Station