Background
The 2016 presidential election demonstrated the power of using fake and real news stories to shape voter impressions of a politician. An effective strategy is to constantly bombard your opponent with fake news through social media channels, while also fact-checking your opponent's news stories to prevent them from affecting your voters. In these dark and uncertain times, political domination hinges on the control of this information flow. Begun, the Info Wars have.
the challenge
Our task is to design and build an Info Warrior robot that will win the Info Wars. The battleground consists of two separate Echo Chambers that competitors may reside in. Each Echo Chamber is home to three social media site towers and has a Safe Space that is both a starting location and reloading zone. Robots may be armed with up to 12 standard issue Alternative Facts (Nerf balls), which are launched into the NewS Feed Window (NSFW) at the top of the opponent's social media sites in order to post them as fake news. Sensors at the base of the towers can be activated to temporarily raise a Fact Checker shield over that social media site and protect it from incoming fake news. Each social media site favors whichever robot has posted more fake news to that site, and victory is achieved by taking control of more social media sites than your opponents do.
Design statement
The objective of this project is to construct an autonomous robot that can, at a minimum, defeat the average Internet user (a brick) by taking control of at least two social media sites and activating the Fact Checker on at least one of its own social media site towers.
Introducing Gwen
Gwen is Team Hollaback Girl's solution to the Info Wars. Designed and constructed as part of the Stanford University ME210 Initiative, Gwen combines efficient movement and a unique targeting system to deliver a heavy payload into enemy territory.