Nathan Nguyen, majoring in Mechanical Engineering and hailing from Cypress, CA, helped fuel KUdos, Kettering University’s VEX-U robotics team, to a strong showing at the Illini VURC Cornfield Clash 1, hosted at the Siebel Center for Design at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Champaign, Illinois.
Competing against 12 university teams from across the Midwest and beyond, including Purdue University, The Ohio State University, and the Milwaukee School of Engineering, KUdos earned second place overall and secured a VEX-U Worlds qualification in its first event of the season.
Their robot pair, Luigi and Guido, named after the mechanics from the movie Cars, combined consistent on-field performance with a documented engineering process that stood out to judges.
The team also earned second place in Skills and was recognized with the Design Award, one of the most rigorous judged awards at VEX-U competitions.
With a tournament finalist finish, a Design Award win, and a Worlds qualification secured at their first event, the team now advances to VEX-U Worlds, where they will compete against top university teams from around the globe.
Since 1919, Kettering University has pioneered unique educational experiences that blend classroom instruction with real-world wage-paying work at cooperative employer partners. The Flint, Michigan-based private nonprofit university is world-renowned for its engineering, mathematics, business, and science programs that produce some of the brightest, most successful entrepreneurs and business innovators. Leaders in the fields of autonomous vehicles and robotics, Kettering is consistently ranked among the country’s best universities for return on investment and career preparation. Learn more at kettering.edu.