Team History

The Beginning

The Rose-Hulman Robotics Team was founded in 1995 as the Aerial Robotics Club. In its first few years much was done in research and development of the first helicopter platform. This period of time was dubbed the orange tape era due to the color of tape used on the vehicle. Not much is known about this first year but much of the info structure that was not in place such as the robotics lab not much was done with regards to work on the original vehicle. The following year the team was much more successful. The team produced the first autonomous helicopter which was named Helios. Using a Kyosho Concept helicopter, the team was able to produce a vehicle complete with cameras as well as various other sensors which they entered into the competition. The team also had a working fuzzy controller this year and had full autonomous flight. The team also acquired the current robotics lab in the Myers building this year.

Silver Tape Era

The silver tape era started in 1998 and lasted until the year 2000. During this time period the team expanded upon the Kyosho helicopter. Not much is known about this period except that the helicopter changed greatly from year to year. Big Red 1, the helicopter's base station, was also constructed during this period of time. Due to changes in the competition rules, in the year 2000 the team was forced to abandon their current vehicle Helios as well as the current software platform that it was running on and to start over again. This marked the end of the silver tape era.

Dark Ages

Due to the abandonment of the previous working vehicle and the inability of the team to produce a vehicle capable of autonomous flight, the years 2001–2004 were dubbed the Dark Age. During this period of time the team began work on the current helicopter, Wilbur, as well as Helicontrol which is the software platform that serves as the core of the helicopter. While the team did go to competition every year, they did not fly the helicopter. During the years 2003–2004 the team did not even bring the vehicle to the competition. The construction of Big Red 2 was started during this period of time. The primary cause of the dark era was lack of documentation on the previous vehicle which forced the team to redo much of the research that was gathered during the previous eras. In order to prevent this, the team introduced online documentation methods in 2003. This marked the beginning of the Robotics Network. During this age the team's name was also officially changed to the Robotics Team.

The End of Helicopters

In 2005 for the first time since the beginning of the Dark Era, the team constructed a working  PID controller which was able to hover Wilbur in simulation. This marked the end of the Dark Era. The team also re-launched the website project which had remained dormant since 2001. However, the team was not able to finish all of the hardware and software needed to compete in the competition. The team did establish a new technical paper writing system which won the team the Best Paper award at competition. Over the summer of 2005 the team established the Robotics Team Policies and Procedures Manual which was designed to help document the actual inter-workings of the club. The team also launched a major network renovation project to improve documentation methods. However despite all of this the team was still unable to get a vehicle off the ground. For numerous reasons the team decided to switch to a ground based autonomous vehicle.

The Velcro Era

In fall 2007 the team began work on a vehicle for the  Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC). Unfortunately, hampered by a budget too small to by appropriate parts, they met with little success. With seeking external funding prohibited to the team (because the Institute was seeking funding for its new Robotics Certificate), they simply had to make do. Recruitment was slow, but the team gradually began to build in size from the four members remaining in 2007.

In this era two robots were constructed, dubbed RATT 1 and RATT 2 (RATT stood for "Rose-Hulman Autonomous Terrain Traverser", a name which nobody liked, though nobody is quite sure who is to blame for it, either).

The Current Era

TODO