Gainesville, FL (AHN)-It may look like almost any other shopping cart, but Gregory Garcia's robotic invention, known as B.O.S.S. for Battery Operated Smart Servant, is not your average cart. Sensors allow it to follow the shopper around the supermarket and slow down when needed so items can be placed in it, and it never crashes into anyone's heels.

His cart was one of about 30 robots on display Wednesday by students at the University of Florida, who worked the past semester on the projects using their engineering backgrounds.

Garcia tells the AP, "The immediate thing that jumped to my mind was all those times as a kid when my sister would accidentally hit me with a cart," adding that, "It seems like the public would really want this since everybody shops."

Students were given free rein in deciding the type of robot to construct, with robots ranging from a poker robot that deals cards to poker players to a robotic invention that tells color blind people the color of a traffic light.

The student-built submarine called the SubjuGator 5 has won first place for two years in a row in competition with other universities. The robot is a clear tube about two feet long, with cameras and sensors to follow a simulated pipeline and send back pictures to people on land or in boats.

University of Florida students have been building autonomous mobile robots since 1993 ranging from submarines to helicopters, from planes to snakes, and from hydrofoils to alligators. Most of the students showing robots were seniors in engineering or graduate students.