Our Mechatronics Engineering Students Win a Prize at the 7th International METU Robot Days

The Bahçeşehir University team, made up of 2nd-year Mechatronics Engineering students of the Faculty of Engineering, won second place at the 7th International METU Robot Days.

Participating in the competition organized by the METU Robotics Society on 13–14 March 2010 with a total of seven robots in four categories, our students won second place in the free category with their robot named AVCI.

The team representing Bahçeşehir University in the competition consists of Ozan Enç, Kaan Alper, Batuhan Yılmaz, Can Dizdaroğlu and Mert Kayacan, second-year students of the Department of Mechatronics, Faculty of Engineering, who are also interns at the Bahçeşehir University Technology Development Center (BUTECH), and Ceren Öztulca, an Energy Systems Engineering student.

The team took part in the 7th International METU Robot Days with 2 large Sumo Robots named HGB and Salkım Saçak, 2 mini Sumo Robots named Titrek and Kocaayak, and three free projects. The free projects were an internet-controlled laboratory, a sea-cleaning robot and the AVCI project, which won the team second place in its category.

The AVCI project is a targeting system that aims to combine two types of fire performed by conventional weapons, point fire (machine gun fire) and indirect fire (mortar fire), on a single platform and to minimize the effect of external factors on firing in all scenarios. One of the system's most important advantages is the cheap and easy implementation of motion detection via the operator's helmet, a method used by very few systems in the world. Another aim of the system is to maximize operator safety by keeping the user in an armored and safe environment during both types of fire, and to maximize civilian safety by allowing the operator to focus on the target without being distracted by extra controls during aiming. Designed to control all kinds of conventional weapons on all kinds of military platforms at low cost, the system can be applied to platforms such as armored personnel carriers, armored motorized combat vehicles, helicopters and floating combat platforms.

The team, which won second place at the 7th International METU Robot Days with AVCI, will take part in the İTÜ Robot Olympics on 15–16 April and the Uludağ University Robot Days on 1–2 May.