The Institute of Navigation holds an annual robotic lawn mower competition, and this year, Auburn's team placed second earning a $10,000 prize in the dynamic competition.
The purpose of the competition is to design a robotic lawn mower that can quickly and accurately cut through grass.
The eighth ION robotic lawn-mower competition was held June 2-4 in Beavercreek, Ohio.
For the dynamic competition, Auburn's autonomous lawn mower "Moe" was navigated through a playing field avoiding a fence, a flower bed and a remote-control car while cutting grass. "Moe" was created by created by engineering students Michael Carroll, William Woodall and John Harrison.
"Moe can pretty much do anything we tell it to do," Woodall said.
It has two electrical cutting motors for cutting grass, and it can either be driven with a remote control like a Playstation controller or autonomously using GPS coordinates.
"Just the idea that you can drive a lawn mower while sitting on your porch I think is appealing to most people," Woodall said.
Moe can even last up to four hours on remote control and two and half on autonomous control, Harrison said. It is battery operated and can recharge using a plug.
Woodall said the sensors, which are used to detect boundaries for when the blades should be in motion, are what the team worked on the most and what helped throughout the competition.
"We were keeping track of where our cutters were," Woodall said. "And because we knew where the robot was, as soon as the cutting blades would go over the white lines, they'd cut off immediately so that we wouldn't cut outside because you get penalized for that."
The group focused more on cutting than trimming, which Harrison admits they want to work on for next year because first place, Case Western Reserve University, was successful at both.
Last year Auburn placed third and this year second. The goal for next year is to win first place.
The project began as a senior design project in the summer of 2009 with the dynamics competition in mind.
"It was made mostly out of products you could buy that were premade, preassembled, with a little bit of work involved," Harrison said.
The building process took a year to complete, Carroll said, with the assistance of 18 mechanical, electrical and software engineering students, but the three teammates continued working and focusing on electrical and software development.
The estimated cost to complete the project was between $10,000 and $15,000.
The team received support from the team's adviser Mark Nelms, chair of Auburn's department of electrical engineering.
Calvin Cutshaw, electrical and computer engineering technician, and Auburn engineering alumni Julian Davidson and his wife, Dorothy, also contributed to the project funds.
Currently, the lawn mower is on tour visiting various high schools.
The team has big plans within the next few months to cut a big AU on the fields at South Donahue and Lem Morrison drives and film it from a helicopter.
Next year the team will compete again with hopes of winning first place.
"It was a really great experience," Carroll said. "It is interesting to see the other team's approach to the competition problems. We will incorporate some of those ideas and go to compete again next year."
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