Matthew
Tavares

Project Details:

• Competitions: Battlebots, BattlebotsIQ, BotsIQ, and RoboGames
• Peak Positions: Captain, Mechanical Design, Electrical Design, Driver
• Date: 2004 - Present

Project Description:

The Blender is an award winning combat robot that has competed in various Battlebots, BotsIQ, and robot combat competitions from 2004 - 2015. Weighing in at 120 pounds, the Blender is a full body spinner, rotating a 30 inch bladed titanium shell at 1000 rpm for anyone brave enough to turn it on. Beginning life at the Richardson High School Robotics Magnet in 2004, the original Blender did well in it's first Battlebots IQ competition, taking home the coveted Coolest Robot award in it's first year. After this and every competition, the robot was taken back to the drawing board and improved. Our constant iterating let us take us take 1st place in both 2007 and 2009. In 2008 the Blender design went to college with the introduction of the Blender Mini and the UTDallas Combat Robitcs Team. After winning the 120 lb high school division twice the the 120lb Blender design was brought to UTD to compete in even harder competitions. Today, the UTDallas Combat Robotics team Matt created continues to compete and the Blender most recently was awarded quarter finalist at RoboGames 2015 and 1st at BotsIQ 2011.

News:

• Dallas Morning News: UTD BattleBots team takes third at 2015 RoboGames

Project Details:

• Client: Hanson Robotics
• Roles: Electrical Design Lead, Mechanical Design, Manufacturing
• Date: 2007

Project Description:

A walking and talking 17-inch-tall, 4.5-pound humanoid robot boy named Zeno. The prototype reperesented the first intelligent "conversational robot" and was intended to be the first of Hanson's "Robokind" line of personal, interactive bots. Zeno had 12 motors in the head that provided Zeno with a wide range of expressions and 18 motors used in the body for walking, talking, and interacting with the enviroment. Behind one of its eyes was a camera that the robot used to recognize faces and human expressions. The robot A.I. was driven by scripted content, fuzzy-logic, and voice recognition to keep users fed with relevant and engaging information.

Project Description:

The Infinity Seismic Hydrophone Tester ruggedly tests a vast and growing library of hydrophone sensors for geophysical exploration companies around the world. Hydrophones are underwater microphones sometimes used in reflection seismology to map sea-bed oil and mineral deposits. By testing hydrophones as they are deployed and recovered, proactive care can be taken to prevent and remove incorrect data from seismic shots. The quick-changing hydrophone sealing adapters, a pressure washable exterier, and mud-resistant redundant test sensors are some of the reasons the Checkmate Marine is the industries foremost hydrophone tester.

Project Details:

• Client: Vercét LLC and Infinity Seismic
• Services: Mechanical Design, Acoustic Research
• Date: 2010

Project Description:

Julio is a fully expressive humanoid robot that was built for the exhibition "Souls & Machines" at the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, Spain. Julio was a collaboration with Grammy award winning musician David Byrne who voiced the robot's musical soundtrack. The exhibition performance was designed to show off the full range of Julio's facial expressions during a 5 minute scripted loop.

Project Details:

• Client: Hanson Robotics
• Services: Electrical Design, Manufacturing
• Date: 2008

Project Description:

The Blender Mini was the first of the UT-Dallas combat robots. Starting a new team is tricky so a smaller 15lb 2500 RPM full body spinner was made. The smaller size and lower cost allowed technologies such as brushless motors, 3D Printed chassis, lithium batteries, and exotic titanium shell shapes to be tested out. Winning 2nd place in the 2008 15lb college division of Bots IQ and competing again with a rebuilt chassis in 2009, the Blender Mini carried nearly 1700 Joules of energy in a fully spun up shell and had three times the rpm of the 120lb Blender.

Project Details:

• Team: UTDallas Battlebots Group, UTDallas IEEE Robotics Society
• Roles: Team Captain & Founder, Design Lead, Driver
• Date: 2008 - 2009

Project Description:

A strong and abstract chair made in Matt's garage but designed for volume manufacturing and flat pack shipping. Two complete chairs can be made on a cnc wood router out of one 4ft x 8ft sheet of plywood. The only tools needed for assembly are wood glue, nails, clamps, and finish. The design was done in SolidWorks and is equation driven for quick modifications. Solidworks design time was four hours.

Project Details:

• Client: Tavares Labs (Personal)
• Roles: All
• Date: 2014

Project Description:

The Ice Press takes large blocks of ice and rapidly melts them into perfect 70mm ice spheres for use in fine spirits. When compared to other ice shapes, spherical geometry results in longer-lasting and slower melting ice, keeping your drink cold and yet not watered down.

Project Details:

• Client: HG Supply Company through Vercét LLC
• Services: Mechanical Design and Manufacturing
• Date: 2013

Project Description:

Aleph Null is a humanoid character robot consisting of a fully expressive human-like face and gestural arms. Aleph uses a combination of computer vision, speech recognition, and facial expressions to simulate the art of human to human conversation. Aleph has appeared on an episode of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" portraying a precursory robot to the terminator.

Project Details:

• Client: Hanson Robotics, Sarah Connor Chronicles
• Services: Electrical Design, Mechanical Design, Manufacturing
• Date: 2007

Project Description:

A multi-chemistry ten channel battery charger, capable of auto-sensing and charging the battery packs used in a selection of seismic equipment. The gang battery charger is ruggedly designed for the in-field realities of the seismic geophysical industry, with repairable and off-the-shelf parts used anywhere possible. Ten individually fused and controllable channels provide accurate charging irrespective of connected battery state or cell chemistry. A universally readable and color-blind friendly silkscreened user guide and channel status lights indicate each charging channel's charging status.

Project Details:

• Client: Infinity Seismic through Vercet LLC
• Services: Mechanical Design Lead
• Date: 2012

Project Description:

The Data Taxi is a lightweight data transport device for in-field collection of seismic data from I/O RSR seismic data recorders. RSR recorder units are laid out in grids connected to geophones for recording seismic shots, and users move from recorder to recorder with a Data Taxi, downloading the seismic data from each unit as they go. At the Data Taxi's peak, over 230 units where being used on all seven continents under the notoriously tough seismic field conditions. People liked to use them as hammers so the units inevitably broke. I diagnosed and repaired all damaged Data Taxis for two years before writing repair documentation and training an off-site facility to take over both the electrical and mechanical repairs. The large amount of failure analysis performed in this duty continues to imform my design desisions to this day.

Project Details:

• Client: SES by Vercét LLC
• Services: Repairs, Documentation, Instructor 1-2 a week
• Date: 2009 - 2012

Project Description:

An example of my earlier work, I made a micro remote controllable hovercraft when I was 13 years old. About the size of a cell phone, the hovercraft was made of balsa wood and styrofoam chassis held the pager motors that spun propellers made out of a Dr. Pepper soda can. The skirt was made from thin plastic grocery bag and the electronics where "borrowed" from an RC pocket tank.

Project Details:

• Client: Impressing the 7th Grade Female Classmates (Didn't Work)
• Role: All
• Date: 2001