UTC robotics team wins its first international award

Senior Juan Pena makes his presentation at the 15th International MoNE Robot Competition in Turkey. Photo credit: College of Engineering and Computer Science

Juan Pena was a tad nervous as he stepped onstage to tell judges about the prosthetic hand he helped develop to improve stroke victims’ lives.

Then he saw the audience of 100 or so people sitting behind the judges who, along with watching the presentation, also asked questions about the device.

“I had to mentally prepare myself,” said Pena, a senior mechatronics major at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. “I just started focusing less on the audience and just on the judges, so that kind of helped me out a little bit.”

Despite his nerves, Pena’s presentation at the 15th International MoNE Robot Competition in Turkey was strong enough to win the Jury Special/Best Design Award, beating out 46 other competitors. It was the first international award won by the UTC robotics team.

About 1,200 participants and 4,000 robots competed in 12 different categories in the competition, which has been held in Turkey since 2007.

Accompanied to Turkey by Dr. Erkan Kaplanoglu, associate professor of mechatronics and interim department head, Pena—who graduated from Spring Hill (Tennessee) High School—was awarded a plaque, a cash prize and a large 3D printer, which he and Kaplanoglu donated to a Turkish high school.

Christopher Winters, who graduated from UTC in May with a bachelor’s degree in applied science with a concentration in mechatronics, was part of the team that developed the prosthetic hand.

Officially named the Pneumatic Actuated Wearable Soft Robotics System for Mirror Hand Rehabilitation (PneuExoHand), the device is made up of a pair of gloves, one for each hand.

The glove on the working hand contains sensors so movements on that hand are mirrored through the glove on the non-working one. Make a fist on the working hand, for instance, and the non-working hand also will make a fist.

“We aim to test this robotic system on patients in the coming semester,” Kaplanoglu said.