Sweepin' the Nation: 2.007 Robots Clean Up

Dubbed the mother of all robot contests, 2.007 has been replicated worldwide in engineering schools and on television. This year's May 5-6 dust-up may be over, but you can soak up the event via online videos. Watch the preliminary bout, the final event, interviews with 24 contestants who show off their devices--plus a documentary about the legendary event.

In this year's game, Sweepin' the Nation, contestants earned points through three tasks: robots could crush soda cans, place them (or precrushed cans) in a storage slot, and stack bales of trash. Working with identical totes of materials, some contestants build two robots that performed different tasks while some build one large robot. Edward Grinnel '11 won the event followed by Pablo Bello '11, Elvine Pineda '11, and Arielle Fischer '11.