Competition and Hackathon Winners

Aspiring engineers and scientists worldwide are winning competitions using MATLAB and Simulink—building technical skills and gaining valuable experience. Take a look at recent champions and their projects and be inspired to enter, compete, and possibly even take home a top prize.

Global Competitions

​​Robotics

Ritsumeikan University

1st place: RoboCup Soccer Small Size League Division B - 2024

The Ri-one team utilized a Kalman filter in the SSL league to eliminate noise from the raw data, thereby improving the accuracy of their simulations. As a result, the team resolved issues such as the sudden loss of coordinate data received by the robots and unstable behavior during stops, significantly contributing to the team's victory.

Signal Processing​

The University of Texas at Dallas

1st place: IEEE International Future Energy Challenge - 2024

The undergraduate team at UT Dallas used MATLAB and Simulink to develop a control loop for their Audio Amplifier capable of achieving minimal distortion and noise. They also used Simulink’s Frequency Response Estimator to ensure the system's stability.

Automotive

Rochester Institute of Technology

1st place: FSAE Michigan EV 2024

RIT Racing came in 1st place at the 2024 EV FSAE competition in Michigan. MATLAB's data processing capabilities enabled the team to analyze results from lap time simulations to set key vehicle targets for optimal performance. Furthermore, a custom data-driven powertrain model in MATLAB allowed us to confidently size our accumulator to last for a full endurance.

Automotive

University of California, Berkeley

3rd place overall, 2nd place in AutoCross, 2nd place in Endurance: Formula SAE Michigan Combustion 2024

The team used MATLAB to develop their in-house LapSim script which determined the optimum final drive ratio. MATLAB was also used to validate shifting tank size based on pressure applied and number of shifts required, model the torsional stiffness and vehicle dynamics relationship, and further analyze and interpret the physical test results. Other applications of MATLAB to improve their car engineering included center of pressure calculations, load calculations, and vector analysis.

Aerospace

Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II

1st place: Airbus Sloshing Rocket Workshop 2023

The AIRSLOTHS team from Naples used MATLAB to design the aircraft model and simulate its flight. The code managed both inertial and aerodynamical properties, giving the team the flexibility to adjust the parameters to maximize the range and altitude reached by the model.

Robotics

National University of Singapore

1st place: RoboSub 2023

Bumblebee Autonomous Systems, from NUS Singapore won the Maritime Robosub Challenge 2023. They used MATLAB for the simulation of controls and acoustics for the Autonomous Underwater vehicle 4.1. This allowed the team to fine tune the movement controls and acoustics model needed for the vehicle to complete tasks for the competition.