RoboCup Regionals rock MOTAT

RoboCup Regionals rock MOTAT

RoboCup Junior NZ Auckland Regional Finals were held at MOTAT in late August with much anticipation and excitement from the competition’s young contenders.

RoboCup Junior NZ is a national robotics competition for schools. It encourages Kiwi youth with an interest in scientific and technological fields and to cultivate their interest through hands on creation as part of the school curriculum.

However, for 12 children without access to computer technology at their schools, MOTAT also ran a number of robotics workshops on weekends, to give them the opportunity to use MOTAT’s tools and technology to construct a robot and enter the competition.

“It was a really good experience,” says Patrick Heavey of Team MOTAT.

“We got to learn all about robots and use the MOTAT computers to make ours, which was awesome.”

Nearly 70 children from nine schools throughout the Auckland region and Team MOTAT competed in three categories – Rescue Mission, Soccer Matches and Dance Challenge – during Saturday’s RoboCup challenge.

The Rescue Mission competition mirrored the real life use of rescue robots, with the contender’s robots overcoming a series of obstacles and navigating a complex path to reach a designated rescue area.

Matt Davidson and Harrison Fisher, both 12, of Waikowhai Intermediate won the Rescue Mission category, open to students year 13 and below, with a robot constructed from Lego and light sensors.

“We’ve been working on our robot since the start of the second term. It has taken us a lot of work to get it to this standard, but it’s definitely worth it. We’re stoked with our win!”, says Matt.

The Dance Challenge saw the integration of technology and the arts, with participants programming their robots to dance to music.

Emily Cumming and Zoe Wells, both 12, of Baradene College and Auckland Normal Intermediate, won the Dance Challenge, with a pair of robots whose well rehearsed moves were modeled on traditional ballroom dancing.

“We were really pleased with how it went – we’ve put about 80 hours into getting the robots interacting with each other like dance partners, which was very tricky,” said Emily.

“The audience really liked the cow costumes we dressed our ‘dancers’ in too, so that was a nice bonus.”

The Soccer Match category required students to design and programme two robots to compete against an opposing pair of robots by kicking an infra-red transmitting ball into their designated goal.

Match winning team Chaotic Robotic of Tauranga Boys College modeled its robots’ moves on professional soccer players.

“We constructed them from Lego and both ‘players’ have a light sensor, which seeks the light inside the soccer ball, so they basically just chase the light