FIFTEEN University of Technology (UTech) students will journey to Florida later this month to take part, as the only non-American team, in the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) South Eastern Conference.

There they will participate in six competitions that are a feature of the conference — a hardware [robotics] competition, a software competition, a technical paper competition, a website competition, ethics paper, and a t-shirt design competition.

They are especially enthusiatic about the robotics competition, preparations for which have proven time- and resource-consuming since they began work on the creation of a robot — in line with specifications given to them by conference organisers — last August.

The invention is an information-gathering machine capable of detecting voltage, electrical wave form, capacitants and temperature, as well as being able to wirelessly traverse a confined area.

“The robot is autonomous. That means it’s just programmed to complete these tasks without the assistance of any type of controls,” said Farley Artwell, a third-year electrical engineering student who specialises in electronics and communication.

He, like the other team members who will participate in the robotics competition, is confident they can win. Only last year, they competed against 40 other teams and placed in the top 20 — despite problems with the device when they arrived at the conference.

“The team synergy has developed a lot [since then and now] we are working overnight, programming the robot [and] coexisting in a manner that we can see the robot completing its task. So we are expecting a lot from this competition and expecting to push all the way,” Artwell told Career & Education.

Even though their preparations began last August, the imported parts for the machine only arrived in January and at a cost of $410,000 to the university. Since then, they have been all business.

“Over this three-month period, every day — Sundays and Saturdays included — we would be in the lab, programming, getting circuits together, the whole works, just to see this robot come alive and the different aspects being put together accordingly,” said team leader Kimroy Bailey, who specialises in instrumentation and controls.

He explained some of the workings of the machine.

“Consider your ceiling and that something should happen electrically in that confined space. It’s a very small space for someone to fit in there and see in the dark. This robot is intelligent enough to detect voltage; you don’t want to go and then find out the voltage was there by getting shocked. You would want the robot to go and say ‘we have this magnitude voltage at this point’, for example,” Bailey said.

“It [also] collects information [on temperature difference and highlight that information]. It brings it together, comes back to you who is on the ground and you can retrieve this and say ‘okay, this is where the problem is, this is where the zinc is extremely hot for instance, how are we going to fix it? How are we going to go from here?’ So you have solved a lot of your problems. You know what is going on up there which you could not have seen as the light is out, so it brings you one step closer,” he added.

Bailey said based on their research, there is no other such device available in Jamaica.

Meanwhile, the ethics competition will include doing a paper on the codes of conduct that govern the engineering body.

For the technical paper competition, they are working on making a wind turbine operate in tropical storm wind conditions. According to Bailey, they are looking at ways to harness the energy produced in tropical storms and using it.

The software competition will see three computing-based engineer students in a room for eight consecutive hours with no breaks, Internet access, or related literature. They will be given 10 different programming cases to complete and the team to finish all 10 or that is at the furthest point at the end, wins.

However, to get to the competition, which will run from March 15 to 18 in Orlando, the team requires sponsorship. The $410,000 investment from the university aside, the cost to make the trip is projected at $45,000 per student.

“At this last stage where everything has come together so nicely, we are really encouraging sponsors to come on board and be a part of this,” said Dave Muir, lecturer in the electrical engineering programme at UTech, who is expected to accompany the students.

Artwell noted that they have received feedback from some corporate entities, but that they had expected more, given what they are pursuing.

“A lot of this technology that we are using now can be used in real life, in terms of manufacturing or even in the communication industry. We are using sensors, we are using more technical avenues in which tasks can be completed in a more advanced, but simpler manner and so we can get work done in a timely and more efficient manner,” the 22-year-old told Career & Education.

“We need these devices. What we need is engineers who can tailor things to our industry. We have problems unique to us; different. We need engineers who can create solutions to solve our unique problems,” added Bailey, noting that the work that they and others like them are doing would help Jamaica realise its Vision 2030 development targets.