Snowbots

The Future Is Autonomous.

We are Snowbots!

We are an engineering student design team at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Our team consists of members across many disciplines who are passionate about engineering, robotics, and the future. Each year, we apply our knowledge and creative talents to build robots capable of navigating challenging terrain without human input, and compete against robotics teams from around the world.

Autonomous navigation technology finds applications in diverse fields, such as mining site expeditions, personal vehicle transport, and search and rescue missions.

We are looking for ambitious students who have a desire to learn and contribute their skills to ensure that UBC remains a pioneer in autonomous technologies.

Our current robot

Our robot uses a LIDAR laser scanner for detecting physical objects and several webcams for detecting coloured boundaries painted on the grounds. Internally, our camera vision system uses OpenCV to provide fast image capturing and processing techniques, which is essential for operating in performance critical situations.

A close up of the webcams


software

Software running on the robot

The software portion of our robot is primarily developed in C++, using the Robot Operating System (ROS) framework, with some specific portions written in Python and C.



Our competition

Since 2014 we have been competing in the Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC) held in Michigan. IGVC is an international competition with over 40 teams from Australia, China, India, Japan and the United States competing to showcase their robotics skills.

In prior years we have competed in the International Autonomous Robot Racing Challenge (IARRC) where we achieved top ranking for five consecutive years.

picture of igvc awards
Year Competition Accomplishment(s)
2016 IGVC Rookie of the Year
5th place in the Design Competition
2015 IGVC 4th place in the Design Competition
5th place in the IOP Networking Challenge
2014 IGVC Qualifier course completed
2012 IARRC Grand Award
2011 IARRC Grand Award
2010 IARRC Grand Award and 2nd place
2009 IARRC 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th place with multiple robots
2008 IARRC 4th Place

Thank you to our sponsors