By Ying Yee Wong
Engineering Open House (EOH) is being held from yesterday, March 31, to today, April 1, on the Engineering Quad. This event provides visitors with opportunities to explore engineering at the Univerisity of Illinois.
This year there are more than 200 exhibits in EOH. iRobotics is one of the exhibits at the event. They are also the largest robotics student organization at the University of Illinois. Pranav Burugula, the president of iRobotics, said he and his members have been preparing this event's activities very early: "We also have a big competition out there, Robobrawl. that is a very, very long process. We start in the summer." He said they needed to plan how to build the arena for the competition, organize a match, and encourage more people to participate.
Robobrawk is a major competition in EOH, showcasing the combat between two robots of 1 lb and 30 lb robots and simultaneous competitions. Many visitors were in the crowd to see the showcase. Rachel deGuzman and her husband, Remy deGuzman, are one of the teams to join the 30 lb robots competition. They are also the first time to participate in the competition in EOH.
"We actually started building the robot around winter break, but we've been preparing, I'd say probably for about, oh, three or four weeks now for this competition, trying to fix anything that's wrong and make sure that we put on a good show for everybody." deGuzman said.
This showcase also let her made some new friends, "There's a lot of good camaraderie in between everybody wants to share and help out. It's just a good event to make friends and just build up friendships."
Not only STEM students but everyone is also welcome to join EOH. "there are definitely a lot of people here who may not be an engineer but are just as passionate about what their organization is doing and what they want to show in this event as everyone else." Burugula said.
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