Assembling UTech's 1st Humanoid Robot

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A humanoid is a machine capable of replicating a human's action and assist in everyday activities. After over 4 months of planning and preperation the UTech Robotics Team Marketing tool the 'ShowBot' arrived on the island on Thursday February 23, 2012 was ready to be launched. The UTech team in a bid to raise 1.3 million Jamaican dollars to send a team of 15 students to Orlando Florida to participate in six competitions purchased a humanoid robot to allure investors to understand how serious the team really is.

The UTech Robot posing - 'To di Werl' with a painting of the world ironically in the background. - Please sponsor our Robotics Team for the 2012 Competition in Florida

The robot called the 'showBot' is an extremely versatile machine, capable of mimicking many human movements and ideal for the tourism industry to showcase engineering and technology on the island of Jamaica. After arriving on the Faculty of Engineering and Computing about 4:45pm some of the members of the robotics team was ready and waiting to spend the next 18 consecutive hours on getting the robot together.

The Caterpillar wheel base of the Robot capable of maneuvering over obstacles

 More than 50 bags of parts imported according to specification we unpacked and the connection and fitting process began. a total of six students members of the robotics team and the team leader, yours truly :) started working at about 10:00pmThursday night. Little did we know that this  project would have elapsed over almost 20 consecutive hours.

Team members hard at work,while I made the most of my 30 mins on the sleeping schedule

  About 4 hours into the process the Base of the robot was fitted together and this serve as one of the greatest motivation for the night. At this point everyone was up and bright for the next two hours in the early hours of 5:00am as the team took sleeping shift and everyone had their time out to get a 30 minutes rest while the other 5 members continued working.

Diandra, the only female programmer in the group posing with a part of the UTech Robot before the arms were mounted

As the worked reached closer to the end and the final product was finally taking shape, everyone was buzzing like a team working on a Ferrari at the pit-stop. We all wanted to share in the moment when the last screw as tightened and robot finally takes shape. This bid eluded us for the last 2 hours of work when every screw seemed as the last screw until it was on the robot and more screws were to be found. The primary purpose of the night was to ensure that EVERY screw was in its right position and that there are ABSOLUTELY no leftovers because that could lead to a crashed Ferrari or a malfunctioning 'showbot' in our case. At 2:45 pm on Friday; 18 hours, 16mins 27 seconds later the final screw was finally the final screw and the Robot was completed.

Members of the assembly team admiring the almost-final product

A small step for the 'ShowBot' a huge step for robotics in Jamaica. The UTech IEEE Robotics team would We take this opportunity to invite you to support our teams in our quest to raise 1.3miilion dollars to participate in a robotics competition in Orlando Florida.We will be competing against more than 50 universities in March at the IEEE Annual SoutheastCon and Jamaica is the ONLY non-America nation at this conference. Our robot could be named after you/your company or hoist your logo/company colors, what better way to publicize your company?