A team of robots built by University of Michigan students won first place and a $750,000 grant in an international competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense and its Australian counterpart.

U-M's team of 14 autonomous robots was built by more than 20 students, most of whom are from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. 

The contest required participants to develop robots that could "communicate with each other and operate with minimal human involvement," according to a U-M news release.

U-M's team of robots took first place out of the five teams that competed in the final round of the Multi Autonomous Ground-robotic International Challenge.

"Behind the robots was an amazing team of students who spent countless hours not only building, programming, and testing, but also dealing with the formidable logistical challenges of putting everything together and then shipping it 10,000 miles away," U-M team adviser Edwin Olson, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, said in a news release.

MAGIC took place in stages over the course of more than two years, and the winners were announced Tuesday.