Campus Preview Weekend is a weekend where admitted prefrosh visit MIT and learn more about the school. For CPW, we wanted to introduce the prefrosh to Arcturus since we’re one of the newest teams through a few events.
First, we visited the ASA Midway and showed off our boat, including our vision demo! We also ran an interest form in hopes that students that commit might join the team next year! We were also sure to pub our next event, Underwater Battlebots!
Right after the midway, we held our battlebots event! The MIT Sea Grant is a bit far from main campus, so we were a bit worried about people getting lost or losing internet, but Amy did an amazing job chalking the floor with arrows towards the event, which really helped the students find us (as well as some other curious passersby)! We had students build underwater ROVs (remotely operated vehicles) called Sea Perches using PVC. But as an extra spin on it, we had them challenge one another by pushing rubber ducks or sinkers at the bottom of the tank into the opposing team’s “end zone” for 3 points each or popping balloons on their opponent’s for 5 points each. The winner was whoever got the highest score by the end of the two minute round! Building off of what we did for Spark, we allotted a whole 3 hours this time instead of 2, which really enabled the students to get more time testing with some spare time to run a formalized tournament. It was awesome to see so many students interested in marine robots, and with around 40 attendees, our mentor said he’d never seen the test tank room so full before. So many of the students said it was their favorite event, which was wonderful to hear! We were really impressed by their clever designs, many of which implemented push pins to pop balloons in interesting ways. We really hope that they commit to MIT and join us next year!
Students' final battlebots!