In February, the UChicago robotics team won the Super Bowl of robotics—Harvard University’s MakeHarvard robotics competition. 

MakeHarvard is not a typical, run-of-the-mill robotics competition: it’s the largest 24-hour “makeathon” for graduate and undergraduate students in the world. Unlike a typical robotics competition, which allows participants to bring a built robot, a makeathon is a competition that allows participating teams a set amount of time—24 hours, in this case—to build and present working prototypes of devices based on a common topic given by the judges. 

 This year’s topic was artificial intelligence, or AI. UChicago’s team submission in the competition was called “Project Pair.”

“Project Pair” is an AI-powered wearable device that can be attached to a baseball cap to assist the visually impaired with identifying people around them. To do this, the device uses an audiovisual system to register the names and facial structures of the people it looks at and stores  the data for future recognition. Using this information, if the device sees a face it already has the data for, it will state the name of the person into the earbuds of the person wearing it. 

“In technical terms, the wearable takes audiovisual input from a video stream, processes the input with AI, and outputs the processed result as audio,” said fourth-year Jackson Lee, the president of UChicago Robotics.

The team attributed their success to team leadership, though the incomprehensible levels of intelligence in the group probably helped (even if the team was quite humble about this fact). 

“The division of responsibility led to our success. We each worked on a single critical feature. Trey [Clark] worked on AI processing, Larry [Li] worked on the audiovisual system, and I worked on video processing while Robert [Pitu] designed the hardware,” third-year Gideon Mitchell said. 

Regardless, this major victory was both the culmination of years of hard work, and the start of a new beginning. For both first-year Robert Pitu and fourth-year Jackson Lee, their success in the competition was highly gratifying, though for different reasons.

“This is my first year with the team, and I am happy to take part in the bright future of the team. It is clear as day to me: our accomplishment marks the start of a new chapter in the team’s future,” Pitu explained.  

“For many, it was a first to attend. For me, now in my fourth year, it was a fitting end,” Lee said.  

The team’s victory not only solidified UChicago’s position as a robotics powerhouse but also fostered a sense of camaraderie and pride within the UChicago robotics community. Makeathon or not, participating in any robotics competition—let alone winning one—requires dedication, adaptability, and perseverance. With their sights set on new horizons, the team stands ready to conquer any challenges that lie ahead.