One of the core Mechanical Engineering courses at MIT is 2.007, Design and Manufacturing 1. The teaching staff creates an elaborate, life-size competition track where our robots compete for points.
The theme for my Spring 2026 semester was F1: Design to Survive. Picture of the track below!
I wanted to focus on creating gearboxes, so I designed and manufactured sub-systems in my robot to complete tasks that required gear reductions or additions. Some highlighted gearboxes below!
I iterated through many calculations and conducted MATLAB simulations to identify the optimal gear ratio for each task.
I, of course, had to have the most beautiful robot too; I carefully machined each gearbox component and had near-frictionless results. My robot’s appearance was inspired by Tow Mater from Cars. I won a design award for the most elegant, regal, and stunning robot.
Here’s the video of me competing live!