Introduction

For the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)’s iRobotics team, engineering isn’t just a classroom subject—it’s a full-contact sport. As part of the ‘27 Combots Team, Laurie and her teammates set out to design and build a combat robot tough enough to survive the arena at UIUC’s Robobrawl competition. But they needed more than just ideas—they needed high-quality, custom-machined parts to make it happen.