C.R.A.W.LAB

Indiana Jones

MCHE 201 Final Project — Fall 2018

Indiana Jones's World Figure 1: Indiana Jones's World

When: Monday, November 19
Where: Blackham Coliseum
RSVP: Dr. Joshua Vaughan

Henry Walton Jones, Jr., better known as Indiana Jones, is a renowned archeologist and tenured professor. He has traveled the world in search of knowledge and artifacts from history. In the course of these travels, he's tangled with, and ultimately prevailed over, Nazis, cults, and the tenure and promotion review board. Now, Indiana Jones needs assistance in his crusade to ensure that the world's ancient relics end up in the right hands. Luckily, MCHE 201 students can help.

MCHE 201 students will design and build devices that have thirty seconds to Collect Sankara Stones, Retrieve the Holy Grail, Put the Ark of the Covenant in the University Museum, Collect Gold Idols, Save Indy's Hat, and Keep Shia LaBeouf Away. The capabilities of these devices will be demonstrated on the representation of the Indiana Jones archeological site shown in Figure 1.

The Competition

On November 19th, beginning at 4:45pm, the Indiana Jones contest will be held in Blackham Coliseum. There will be two events.

Design Review:

From 5 — 6pm, a panel of judges will perform a design review of each machine. The teams must describe their machines quickly and clearly to the judges that visit, who will evaluate each team on aesthetics, ingenuity, and presentation.

Indiana Jones Robotics Contest:

Following the design review, the robots that the students have designed and built will compete in a head-to-head competition on the representation of Indiana Jones's world shown in Figure 1. The robots have thirty seconds to Collect Sankara Stones, Retrieve the Holy Grail, Put the Ark of the Covenant in the University Museum, Collect Gold Idols, Save Indy's Hat, and Keep Shia LaBeouf Away.

Competition Details

The student robots can earn, or lose, points based on their robot's performance in each category of the Indiana Jones contest. The details of each are listed below.

Collect Sankara Stones: There are four Sankara Stones (small toy gemstones) in each team zone. For each Sankara Stone that is collected and placed completely in the University Museum within the team’s zone, the team will earn 5 points.

Retrieve the Holy Grail: The Holy Grail (a small cup) is in the team zone, near the Temple of Doom. It is filled with Holy Water (a racquetball). If the grail is completely collected into the University Museum within the team’s zone, the team will earn 10 points. If the grail is completely collected into University Museum within the team’s zone and the cup is upright with the Holy Water still in it (i.e. The racquetball is still in the top of the cup.), then the team will earn 50 points.

Put the Ark of the Covenant in the University Museum: The Ark of the Covenant (a toy block) is located in each team zone, in front of the University Museum, on either its right or left edge.. For each Ark that is collected and placed completely in the University Museum within the team’s zone, the team will earn 10 points.

Collect Gold Idols: There are four Gold Idols (foil-covered table tennis balls) inside the Inner Temple of the Temple of Doom. Prior to the each competition round, each team will be given three false idols (table tennis balls). For each false idol delivered to the Inner Zone of the Temple of Doom, the team can earn 25 points for a Gold Idol completely collected into the team’s zone. In order to enable collection of Gold Idol points, the false idol must be completely contained in the Inner Zone, including in the vertical dimension.

Save Indy’s Hat: Indy’s Hat (a party hat) is located at the edges between the team zone and each of its neighbors. For each hat collected completely into the team’s zone, the team will earn 10 points.

Keep Shia LaBeouf Away: In each team zone, Shia LaBeouf (a small cone) is hanging out in front of the University Museum, waiting for Indy. Shia may be either on the left edge of the Museum or on the right. If Shia is not kept out of Indy’s way by completely removing him from the team zone, the team will be penalized 15 points.

For More Information…

For more information, see the full set of competition rules on the class website. You can also have a look at the hard work the students have put in already in the class flickr album. Pictures from past semesters are also available in a flickr collection.

A pdf of of this page is also available.

Acknowledgements

A kit of additional mechatronic components is issued to each team for use in this project. These kits were purchased via funding provided by a University of Louisiana at Lafayette Course and Curriculum Design Grant and a University of Louisiana at Lafayette STEP Award.