Australian universities take on New Zealand in robotics competition

The University of Technology Sydney team's robot. Image credit: National Instruments.

The Bledisloe Cup of robotics competitions will take place in Sydney during September with four New Zealand universities taking on 14 Australian universities in the National Instruments Autonomous Robotics Competition (NI ARC) final.

In 2013, a team at Victoria University of Wellington won the first NI ARC competition with their robot, Michelangelo. The competition has been running since 2011.

Thirty student teams have created robots in line with this year’s theme Go, Sow, Grow. For example, the robots will need to collect seeds, move to a farming area that has obstacles and place the seeds in planting areas during the final at Macquarie University on September 25.

Read: Farming the smart way.

National Instruments Oceania managing director Matej Krajnc said all 30 teams have received a $20,000 robot development kit including systems design software and robotics module.

“The competition not only allows students to demonstrate their engineering and mechatronics skills on an international platform, it also teaches them how to complete a defined goal within time limits,” he said in a statement.

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Teams will need to compete in a final challenge on 25 August before they are granted entry into the final event next month.

The winners of the NI ARC will receive a cash prize of $3,000. Second prize is $1,500 while third prize is $750. In addition, a bonus prize of $500 will be rewarded to the team with the best robot design.

According to Krajnc, all teams that complete the competition tasks get to keep the robotics development kit.

Universities competing in the 2014 competition include:

• University of New South Wales
• University of Technology, Sydney
• University of Sydney
• University of Western Sydney
• University of Wollongong
• Macquarie University
• University of Newcastle
• Queensland University of Technology
• University of Queensland
• Griffith University
• Flinders University
• University of South Australia
• La Trobe University
• Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
• Swinburne University
• Victoria University
• Monash University
• University of Melbourne
• Curtin University
• University of Western Australia
• University of Tasmania
• Manukau Institute of Technology
• University of Auckland
• Victoria University of Wellington
• Massey University

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