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Virginia Tech students win robot prize
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Published: December 20, 2008
RICHMOND - A trio of pole-climbing robots developed by two engineering students at Virginia Tech took home the grand prize in the 2008 International Capstone Design Fair in South Korea.
The prize of one million won, the currency of South Korea, equals $690 in U.S. money.
"I was a millionaire for a brief while," said Gabriel Goldman of Henrico County, Va., who with Nick Thayer of Poquoson County, Va., and a team of undergraduates developed the snake-like robots. Goldman and Thayer are pursuing graduate degrees at Tech.
The serpentine robots are designed to spare construction workers the dangerous task of inspecting skyscrapers or underwater bridge piers.
The robots can climb scaffolding and buildings by wrapping around poles and beams and then twisting their entire bodies to roll upward. When they reach their destination, they then use built-in sensors and cameras to inspect structures.
Goldman, who attended J.R. Tucker High School, said he came up with the idea of creating a robot to climb scaffolding several years ago after seeing U.S. Labor Department statistics on construction-site accidents. After two years of development, he said, the robots are only two years away from commercial viability.
"It's finally at a stage where it's ready to wow the world."
The robots built by Tech's Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory competed against 44 entries from universities in more than 15 countries, laboratory director Dennis Hong said. The competition took place at Seoul National University of Technology in South Korea.
The 3-foot-long robots are known as HyDRAS-Ascent (for Hyper-redundant Discrete Robotic Articulated Serpentine), HyDRAS-Ascent II, and CIRCA (for Climbing Inspection Robot with Compressed Air).
Goldman and Thayer worked with a team of students, all of whom have since graduated, to develop the robots.
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