Robots compete in “Hack to the Future”
The future, as defined in the first sequel to 1985’s classic time-travel saga “Back to the Future,” is this year: 2015. So, appropriately enough, that movie was selected as the theme for this year’s version of the annual competition that marks the end of the MIT mechanical engineering course 2.007 (Design and Manufacturing). The popular head-to-head competition between student-built robots is an MIT tradition that goes back even farther than the three-decade old film — all the way back to 1970. Last evening’s 2.007 finals were open to the public, and attracted hundreds of cheering spectators of all ages. The competition, as always, featured many a suspenseful moment as students competed side by side in controlling the robots they had spent a semester designing, building, and testing. Students used a wide variety of clever approaches to score points on a complex field built in the shape of a DeLorean car and clock...