Tec SLP students unite humans and robots in bomb-defusing game

Through a collaborative robot, students in the sixth semester of the Mechatronics Engineering program at Tec de Monterrey’s San Luis Potosí campus have designed an adaptation of a video game whose aim is to defuse bombs.

The original game is called “Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes” and the student project created by students Mauricio Guerrero, Vanessa Franco, Paola Torres, and Alberto Flores is called “Mission Impossible: The Bomb.”

This version of this project involves humans and robots working hand in hand to deactivate explosive devices.The robot interacts with the bomb but doesn’t know how to manipulate it, while the person can’t see it but has a manual explaining step-by-step how to defuse it.

Vannesa Franco, a student at the School of Engineering & Sciences, said that the idea arose from an urge to do“something different” and that the biggest challenge was creating the system for establishing communication between the robot and the camera that provides it with information.

Both this project and that of a traditional bingo game and Connect 4 were developed and presented by students from the Manufacturing System Automation block to the training partner RTI Automation.

Robots in the entertainment industry

Gustavo Flores, a professor at the Mechatronics Department of the School of Engineering and Sciences, pointed out that 18 students participated in the challenge, who developed a total of four different projects over ten weeks.

The teacher explained that the training partner needed a game to be created that would place robotics and automation at the service of the entire population, while demonstrating that robots can also be immersed in the entertainment industry.

Their game “Mission Impossible: The Bomb” stemmed from a love for the original version and the thought of doing “something that no one had done and that would challenge us” such as developing and making both the bomb and its buttons functional, according to Vannesa Franco.

The Engineering student added that the game requires assertive communication, and the use of a collaborative robot enhances human-machine cooperation for solving problems accurately and even through computer vision.

In the game, the human “dictates” instructions to the robot in order to defuse a series of bombs, each with moduleswhose solution is procedurally generated with each round, so players must communicate to defuse them beforethe time runs out or they reach the failed attempt limit.

Lessons that come alive

The game, according to Vannesa Franco, can be solved in five minutes and people of all ages can participate as it has two levels: easy and demanding. In the first, you practically only need to follow instructions, while the second deals with puzzles and/or equations that you must solve.

“It’s a good opportunity to see everything a Mechatronics (engineer) does, i.e., programming, mechanical design, and electrical design. “They are very, very complete projects,” Franco added.

Professor Gustavo Flores insisted that these types of challenges “save” companies up to 6 months of training, since students develop competencies and skills that are useful for the industry.

“It’s a good opportunity to see everything a Mechatronics engineer does, from programming to design.” - Vanessa Franco

“The guys are most thrilled with this work, because at the end they see that their ten-week effort at the training unit converges into a game they play and so they see that everything they learned comes alive,” he said.

Useful challenges for industry

For his part, Sergio Esquivel, General Director of RTI Automation, a company dedicated to designing and developing comprehensive solutions for the industry through implementing specialized control processes and devices for the automation of production lines, said that not only the students benefit. For companies, it represents the opportunity to implement refreshing ideas, which “has worked very well for us in promoting our company.”

“It’s important that students face problems that may occur in the industry. We put a lot of emphasis on those issues,” he added.

Vanessa Franco appreciated the opportunity to work with Programmable Logic Controllers, collaborative robots, and industrial cameras, “which aren’t frequently used in classrooms, but which provide skills for solving problems as professional engineers,” she concluded.

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