October 28, 2019 – Madison College students Schuyler Bostedt, Garrett Butler and Jonathan Stowell took first place in the Industrial Robotics Competition held during the Wisconsin Manufacturing and Technology Show Oct. 8-10 in Milwaukee. Bostedt, Butler and Stowell are enrolled in the Electromechanical Technology associate degree program.
The contest tested robotic programming knowledge by challenging students to complete a set of tasks on a FANUC education robot in three hours. The objective included program planning, end of arm tool selection, robot programming and teamwork. A panel of experts judged the 23 teams on their ability to complete the assignment, efficiency, teamwork and robotics knowledge.
“They had to show that they could apply learned concepts and skills to a new process they had not seen before,” said Peter Dettmer, Robotics and Automation instructor and Electromechanical Technology program director. “There were several ways to accomplish the task and they had to decide on the best method and share the work to get it done.”
The Madison College team won the college division earning a FANUC M1iA 4-axis robot for their school. However, the team donated their prize to the winner of the high school division, Mayville High School. “High schools have more need to expose students to real-world industrial robots,” Dettmer said. “We hope that having different types of robots in their facility will get them interested in how they can program and use them.”
