The old Buffalo Wild Wings building, located on Claremont Ave., right next to Andrews Hall, has been transformed and turned into a warehouse where students in the Eagle Consultants’ group at Ashland University currently work on creating robots and robot sets.

It all started two years ago when Professor Pat Berry, professor of supply chain management at AU, was teaching a class. After assigning students robot kits to build, he found that the kits he was sent from the manufacturer were missing pieces and parts, and the students could not accomplish building them.

Because of this issue, Berry was prompted to take the students to the manufacturer in Middleton, Ohio. He helped students rebuild the robot kits to make them better.

Instead of deciding that it was good enough, students reached out to the CEO of the company and came up with the idea to basically take over the robot operations and make it their sole priority to make sure the kits remained adequate with the proper instructions and no missing pieces.

After further discussion, the CEO agreed with the students, who are now hard at work to make sure this company sticks around for many years to come as the Robotics team grows.

AU senior Elizabeth Paydo is the president of this operation and a supply chain management, entrepreneurship and business management major.

“[The old Buffalo Wild Wings is] now like a workshop, we have our laser there, we have all the pieces and parts that we need to build robot kits,” Paydo said.

Since then, the robot business that they are running has continued to grow, and they are trying to get the word out about what they have created. They are coming up with ideas to spread the word to students not only in the business building, but to all students in other academic colleges. They have reached out to other schools to see if they would be interested, as well as creating how-to videos to help future students interested in participating in this opportunity.

Paydo has two other people under her who are also leaders in running this operation. They have six teams in which they all advise: accounting and finance, research and development, recruitment, marketing and logistics production.

Junior team member, Michael Haley, is in charge of all operational aspects. He and Paydo work closely together to make sure everything runs smoothly.

“We need students from all different majors, so that’s what I want people to understand is that if they want to be a part of it, we need more students from different colleges,” Paydo added.

While this program is still very new, Paydo encourages students to get involved. Students can do that by emailing Berry at [email protected], email Paydo at [email protected], or ask the front office in Dauch.