Xtreme BOTS competition returns to Wright State Nov. 22

High school and college students will battle with remote-controlled robots when during the Ohio Robotics Xtreme BOTS competition Nov. 22 in the Nutter Center.

Teams of high school and college students will battle one another with remote-controlled robots when Wright State University hosts the Ohio Robotics Xtreme BOTS fall competition.

The competition runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 22, in the Wright State Nutter Center. The day will conclude with an awards ceremony. Tickets are $5 per person and are available at the door.

A manufacturing and workforce development career exhibit will run concurrently with the event.

Two hundred students forming 42 teams representing 17 schools, including one team representing Wright State, are expected to participate in the competition. More than 35 students from the College of Engineering and Computer Science have volunteer for the event.

In Xtreme BOTS, students design and build remote-controlled robots that battle in head-to-head competitions, trying to damage their competitor’s bot by ramming, flipping and using a specially built weapon.

Robots must weigh less than 15 pounds and come in all kinds of shapes, from wedges to rectangular blocks to squat cylinders. Teams consist of at least three students and one adult coach.

Each match lasts three minutes, unless one of the bots is knocked out. The competition will use a software system, known as BOTS Master, to judge contests that do not end in a knockout.

Xtreme BOTS is organized by Ohio Robotics Inc., a Dayton-based nonprofit organization whose mission is to help increase the number of manufacturing workers in the Miami Valley. The organization hopes to develop this pipeline by encouraging young people from middle school through college to study science, technology, engineering and math.

Wright State previously hosted BOTS competitions in March 2014 and November 2013, attracting more than 200 high school and college students to each event.

More information on the competition and Ohio Robotics is available on the organization’s website.