Here Come the Underdogs of the Robot Olympics

Cornelius, a hog-sized robot with fat rubber tank treads, has come to a stop in a small, verdant courtyard on the Spanish revival campus of California State University, Channel Islands. "It's either autonomous or broken," Kevin Knoedler says, squinting into the summer sun, his face obscured by a mask and a hat with ear flaps. Knoedler, who has been building robots for decades, knows that it can be hard to tell the difference between a machine that's kaput and one that's cogitating. "Autonomous," says Andrew Herdering, a fourth-year mechatronics engineering major. Suddenly, Cornelius sparks to life.