A UNLV Rebel placed eighth at an international engineering competition this past weekend. Did we mention that Rebel doesn’t have a brain?

From the very beginning of the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) Finals, it was obvious that driving was going to be a problem for the robot contestants. The very first robots to take the field this past Friday at the Fairplex in Pomona, California showed up without their modified Polaris utility vehicles. These machines were hoofing it, using their own legs to gradually make their way down a dirt strip meant to simulate part of a disaster zone too perilous for humans. It turned out to be pretty perilous for robots, too. By not even getting into the cars, these teams were already conceding defeat in the two-day Pentagon-funded competition.

After months of preparation, the fate of UNLV’s bid to win a prestigious robotics competition is now in the hands, or should we say metal clampers, of one robot.

Robots build cars, vacuum floors and complete sophisticated, minimally invasive medical procedures. But there’s still one thing they can’t do, a scientific head-scratcher that continues to distinguish machines from human beings: While a robot might outsmart a single human, it cannot defeat two.

When you ask UNLV robotics professor Paul Oh how long his laboratory took to create, he can’t help but laugh.

UNLV professor Paul Oh is pleased as they are finally opening the doors on a newly built lab for its drone and robotics programs featuring their Metal Rebel competition entry and many others.

The new UNLV Drones and Autonomous Systems Lab is in the back of a 99 Cents store building across the street from the Clark County Library on Flamingo.

The little girl squirmed in her mother’s arms inside a lab at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, her American flag-themed dress contrasting with the hammers, rulers and other engineering equipment that surrounded her.