Elias
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COMPETITIONS

WEC Senior Design

Let the mechanics simplify the software.

  • Arduino
  • Autonomous robotics
  • Rapid prototyping
The amphibious WEC robot with a wide front collection mechanism.
Our autonomous amphibious vehicle for the Senior Design challenge.

Electrical and software development for an autonomous amphibious vehicle, with passive guidance and a conditional recovery mechanism.

The challenge was to cross from a sandy beach through water, collect floating Styrofoam “turtle eggs,” deliver them onto the opposite beach and return. We had to use supplied materials and electronics, with no commands during the run.

My contribution

  • Complete the electrical work and Arduino software.
  • Contribute to the vehicle concept.
  • Program wall bias, ultrasonic turnaround sensing and filtering.
  • Add conditional timed recovery for the climb out of the water.
01 / THE PROCESS

Choosing skids over active centering

An ultrasonic sensor could have actively centred the robot in the lane. Instead, we chose long skids against the side wall and slightly biased the drive toward it. That gave us a simple mechanical reference through the course.

The wide plow could collect balls across the lane, while the ultrasonic sensor detected the far end and triggered the turnaround before we pushed the balls off the safe beach.

02 / THE PROCESS

Recovering when the climb stalled

The motors could struggle to pull the vehicle out of the water. A conditional timed servo action helped unstick it if the far-beach condition had not been detected. If it arrived successfully, the recovery action was suppressed.

I reused filtering and deadband experience from the minibot to manage noisy distance measurements. The electrical work, software, build and presentation preparation all had to fit a short overnight challenge.

WHERE IT LANDED

Second in Senior Design.

The team’s result showed the value of a deliberately simple guidance strategy. I owned the electrical and software work; the mechanism and overall vehicle were a shared team design.

A closer look

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Elias working on the competition robot at a lab bench.
Electrical and software integration during the build.
The four-person WEC Senior team holding their second-place certificate.
Our team after placing second in 2025 Senior Design.
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