Students taught robots to drive, play tic-tac-toe, and master chess
11/17/2025 - 12:51
This past week, our students took on a robotics challenge and the results were nothing short of inspiring.
Stories
Student work
Across a series of hands-on projects, three student teams had full creative freedom to design, build, and demo anything they could imagine using our robotics hardware. Their outcomes speak for themselves:
Duckietown Autonomous Vehicles
A team built a mini self-driving system using the Duckietown platform, developing autonomous navigation on a miniature road network.
A Robot That Plays Tic-Tac-Toe
Another team combined traditional computer vision with the Niryo Ned 2 robot, equipped with a pneumatic pump, to create a fully functional, interactive robot opponent.
Chess-Playing Robot
The third team developed a robot capable of playing chess against a human using the UFactory xArm 850 and an Intel RealSense depth camera - an excellent blend of perception, control and strategy.
What impressed us most was the dedication and curiosity our students showed. They were engaged from start to finish, exploring every possibility and pushing their ideas further than expected.
These projects were made possible thanks to the robotics platforms and tools recently procured for the AI Makerspace a new innovation hub coming soon to BUas, where students from all domains will be able to prototype, experiment, and bring ideas to life. More on the AI Makerspace later...
Proud of the effort, creativity, and technical skill our students demonstrated this week. If this is just the beginning, the future looks very exciting.
