The Big Picture: March of the Automata

(Image by L. Brian Stauffer/UI Public Affairs)

Holed up cramming for end-of-semester exams? Not these UI mechanical science and engineering students! The stakes are high as budding Illini engineers take to the Engineering Quad to compete in the annual ME 370 robot race—dubbed the “March of the Automata”—the capstone to their Mechanical Design I course. Not only do the winners earn some well-deserved bragging rights, they also snag the best prize of all: final exam forgiveness.