Tuesday, March 29th, 2016 |

 

Staff Spotlight: Ryan Miller, Associate Vice Provost

Khaleela ZaInan
TECHNEWS WRITER

Currently the Associate Vice Provost
for Campus Life, Ryan Miller, has been with
Illinois Tech for over five years now. He began
his career at this university coordinating the
parent programs, and he is now the overseer
of all the student organizations on campus,
of the first year experience programs, and of
leadership and service learning. He basically
is the supervisor of most things involving the
Office of Campus Life (OCL.) Ryan Miller
stressed that campus life would not be where
it is today without the hard work and support
of the rest of the OCL staff. He is “just here
to help people work together; they are kind of
the backbone of campus life.” Although he was
recommended to apply for his first position
at Illinois Tech by just happening to know
someone in Residence and Greek Life, Ryan
has been loving his positions at this university.
When asked what he enjoys most about his
current position, Ryan simply commented
that he really likes “how different it is every
day.” All the different student organizations
with all their different programs, “it keeps my
attention.” In general, Ryan loves being a part
of the Illinois Tech community. He always gets
excited for the Taste of IIT event, during which
he thoroughly enjoys learning about other
cultures, connecting with the huge population
of international students here, and being
among such free and open people—clearly, he

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Photo by Khaleela Zaman

for Campus Life

loves “how different everybody is here.”

Ryan, being a very positive and
happy person, struggled to figure out what
he likes least about his position or about
Illinois Tech. He simply stated that he
had “never really thought about that, to be
honest.” Eventually, he did realize that he has
experienced some “frustrations” or struggles
with his current position. Basically, he would
like student organizations to know that they
do not all have to be their own thing. Many
times, multiple student organizations will plan
similar events separately, rather than working
together to make one great event. Other times,
there are student organizations that exist, and
then new student organizations feel the need to
form rather than just helping existing student
organizations grow in new ways.

Always going back to the positive,
Ryan also really likes just “how green [our
campus] is. Just thirty blocks from downtown,”
and there is a completely different space, a real
campus, with “so many trees!” There is no easy
way to get Ryan Miller to have an issue with
anything related to Illinois Tech. Even if Ryan
was offered a position outside of Illinois Tech,
he would want to stay at this university due to
the all the relationships he has made with staff,
faculty, and students throughout his time here.
For Ryan, it is “nice to go places and say hi to
people,” especially when the “people are just so
nice and outgoing.” These simple gestures are
all it takes to make Ryan smile.

Illinois Tech Robotics wins third Midwestern Robotics Design Competition title

Kori Bowns
LAYO UT E D ITO R

Illinois Tech Robotics (ITR), IIT’s
extracurricular robotics team, won their third
first—place title in the club’s 10—year history
competing at the Midwestern Robotics Design
Competition (formerly known as the Jerry
Sanders Creative Design Competition). The
competition is annually held at University of
Illinois at Urbana—Champaign and took place
March 11 and 12.

The Midwestern Robotics Design
Competition is open to any group of college
students. Teams at the competition consist
of up to 6 student members, one of which is
designated as the team captain. Competitors
for this year’s competition featured nearly
two dozen teams from University of Illinois at
Urbana—Champaign, University of Illinois at
Chicago, Northern Illinois University, College
of DuPage, Valparaiso University, Southern
Illinois University, and Illinois Institute of
Technology.

Every year, the committee that runs
the Midwestern Robotics Design Competition
creates a different game that the competing
robots must play. Each game has various goals
that robots can complete which award them
points, and the robot with the most points
at the end of the 6—minute match is declared
the winner. Point multiplies are also offered
to flying entries as well as purely autonomous
entries that don’t use input from a human
operator. Robots must be able to fit within a
three—foot cube and weigh no more than 140
pounds.

This year’s game was played on a 44—
foot square field. For each match, one robot
would start in each corner of the field and
was designated a specific color that matched
game pieces on the field. The primary method
of scoring for the teams was by manipulating

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two different game pieces—golf balls and foam
balls that were softb all— sized.

In order to score golf balls, teams
had to navigate their way to a dispenser and
turn a screw mechanism to release the golf
balls. Each time the screw was turned, a
randomly—colored golf ball would be released.
Robots then had to be able to differentiate
between the colors of golf balls in order to
determine which ones matched their color
for that match (some robots accomplished
this automatically with sensors, other robots
relied on a clear view from their operators).
Teams would then drive their robot to a bin in
a corner of the field where they could drop off
golf balls, where each one matching their color
would earn them 10 points.

In order to score foam balls, robots
had to make their way up a ramp onto an
elevated portion of the course, then lift a pin
mechanism in order to launch balls from a
slingshot device. Robots would then retrieve
the balls and launch or drop them into a
spinning target in order to score 30 points.

During the match, the four robots
on the field were allowed to contact and hinder
each other at all times with the exception of
being in their golf ball retrieval zone. Robots
also received points for navigating certain
obstacles on the field or completing certain
tasks, such as opening a swinging door,
dropping a drop wall, or launching the foam
balls.

Illinois Tech Robotics brought four
robots from their repertoire to the Midwestern
Robotics Design Competition this year.
Each robot on the Illinois Tech Robotics
team has a core group of team members that
work primarily on the robot in addition to
receiving general assistance from the entire
club population. Goliath, the robot that went
on to win the competition, is a wedge—shaped
robot with an arm capable of retrieving and

launching foam balls. Roslund, ITR’s oldest
competitive robot, made it to the quarterfinal
rounds of the competition with a strategy of
quickly navigating field obstacles. Fenrir, a
two—wheeled gravity drive robot from ITR,
focused on retrieving golf balls. ITR’s flying
quadrocoptor robot, Icarus, aimed to navigate
the field as well as distract other robots by
blowing game pieces out of their reach.

After practice matches on Thursday,
March 11, ITR’s robots took the field for the
elimination matches. During these matches,
four robots from various teams were on the
field for one match, and the top two robots
who scored highest in the 6—minute match
time moved on to the next level of competition.
Icarus and Fenrir were unfortunately defeated
after their first match, but Roslund and
Goliath both won their first matches with
a commanding lead. After Roslund was
knocked out in the quarterfinal rounds of
competition, Golaith continued to move on
until finally advancing to the final round of
the competition, where Illinois Tech Robotics
faced off against teams from Southern Illinois
University, University of Illinois at Urbana—
Champaign, and Valparaiso University. After
six minutes of heated competition, and being
cheered on by spectators, Goliath was declared
the victor, coming out on top with 150 points
compared to SIU’s 110, Valpo’s 90, and U of 1’s
0.

Illinois Tech Robotics has a long
history of winning different honors at the
competition. This is the third time an ITR
robot has won the main competition; the
previous victories were secured by Roslund
in 2010 and 2011. Goliath also won the
Midwestern Robotics Design Competition
demolition match in 2014 and 2015. Student
members of ITR are also very proud of
their recent victory. Fourth—year computer
engineering major Nash Kaminski, who was

on the drive team for Goliath, said, “This
was truly an accomplishment for ITR and
goes to show that it takes the dedication of a
large group of interdisciplinary individuals
to successfully overcome the formidable
engineering challenges present in such a
competition.”

Other students on the Illinois
Tech Robotics team were also happy to
share their thoughts on their participation
at the competition. Michelle Goo, President
of Illinois Tech Robotics and third—year
architectural engineering major, says that her
favorite part of the competition was “cheering
for Goliath during the final round and seeing
him win first place.” She added that she was
proud her team’s robot and the work that she
and her fellow club members contributed to
make it a success. Kevin Zheng, a fifth—year
information technology and management
major who competed with ITR on the Roslund
team, said, “I enjoyed the different challenges
in the game. It was my first year going, so it was
a fun and exciting experience for me.”

Goo adds, “My favorite thing about
ITR is working with great people on projects
with all different majors and learning things
outside of what you would in the classroom.
I would have never worked with a flying
anything in my major and working on a
quadrocoptor has really taught me different
things outside my box.”

Students who are interested in
learning more about Illinois Tech Robotics
can visit their website at illinoistechrobotics.
org, join the organization on Hakaink, or
attend any general body meeting held weekly
on Friday nights at 7 pm. in their lab in Tech
South.

More photos on Page 9

  

Photos by Kevin Zheng (left), Kori Bowns (right)