The kiosk component of the CRC Robotics competition is a favourite amongst the John Abbott Robotics Club as it lets the team express itself creatively and presents less constraint guidelines than other competition components. The theme of our kiosk was quickly chosen in September to be “Inside BMO.” BMO is a fictional robot character from the Cartoon Network show Adventure Time.

The first step to creating the kiosk was brainstorming. The kiosk crew brainstormed countless different kiosk configuration ideas before settling on creating, at the front, a door shaped like the fictional robot, on one wall, a full wall motherboard, on the back wall, a mural of a landscape from the cartoon program, and on the last wall, window-like small murals of other key landscape in the show. There will also be benches on two walls creating storage and allowing team members to sit and rest during the competition, and a custom worktable in the center of the build.

The most challenging hardship the team faced during the creation process of the kiosk was money. Over the last couple of years of the CRC robotics competition, our team has recycled the same building materials (wood, screws and tools). These materials have accumulated quite a bit of damage over time, thus much of them had to be replaced. The kiosk crew spent two-thirds of its entire allocated budget replacing old tools and purchasing new building supplies.

One of the purchased building supplies was wood planks of various dimensions to use as wall and ceiling frames. These plants were stored vertically instead of horizontally which caused them to bend and warp. To counter this issue, before constructing the wall frames, the wood planks were sorted by “warpness” to ensure pieces were used in a way that would ensure the most wall stability.

As of submitting the website, the kiosk is still being constructed. So far, the wall frames have been built and painted, the mural is still a work in progress, the benches are being restored from previous kiosks, the table is built (not yet painted) and the motherboard hardware has been acquired.

Along with the creation of the kiosk, JAC Robotics has learned, and will continue to improve its skills in construction: using drills, using electric saws, and painting without staining our clothes.

Many hours go into each component of the AVIA 2023 Robotics Competition. All of the work on the kiosk is done outside of class hours and on the weekend, all our team members have sacrificed at least one weekend day a week to the kiosk since November and all this hard work and sacrifice will greatly pay off!