University of SA takes out annual robot comp
- 23 September, 2015 11:58
The University of South Australia team took out this year's NI robotics competition.
A team from the University of South Australia was awarded $2500 in the 2015 National Instruments Autonomous Robotics competition for its winning autonomous robots.
Swinburne University’s Swinbots received $1000 for coming second while $500 went to Victoria University of Wellington’s Ownbot 4.0 for third place.
VUW also won a $500 bonus cash prize for best robot design.
The robots had to navigate a loading bay, collect goods, pilot to drop off zones while avoiding obstacles.
University of South Australia team member Daniel Griffiths said a “slow and steady” approach helped them win the race.
“My supervisor was right about slow and steady, when it comes to a competition like this, consistency is the key,” Griffiths said.
“This is our third year in the comp. The first time we got knocked out at the very start, second time we made it to the quarter-finals and this time I thought – semi-finals and we can bow out in peace but the fact we made it this far is beyond amazing.”
Engineering student teams have been building their robots over the past six months using the National Instruments ARC development kit.
All teams were required to pass five tasks set by National Instruments in order to make it to the live finals.
According to National Instruments Oceania managing director Matel Krajnic, the competition not only helped students get hands-on experience but also demonstrated the usefulness of robotics to industries such as mining, transport and logistics.