CUHK students triumph at Asia-Pacific robot contest
The victory of the CUHK robotics team speaks for the University’s strength in robotics and innovation education.
Representing Hong Kong, the robotics team from CUHK’s Faculty of Engineering received the Grand Prix Award at the top-notch Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union’s Asia-Pacific Robot Contest (ABU Robocon) held online in August. It was the second time a CUHK team has taken the prize, testifying to the University’s strengths in robotics and innovation education.
Making smart moves
Since 2002, the CUHK robotics team has advanced to five finals of this international trophy, and became the first Hong Kong team to win the championship in 2019. Held online in New Delhi this year, the contest pitted 13 regional winning teams from universities, colleges and academies across the Asia-Pacific region against each other in the final. The CUHK robotics team was selected to represent Hong Kong in the ABU Robocon after winning the championship at the Robocon 2022 Hong Kong Contest in June.
The theme of this year’s contest, Lagori, was inspired by a traditional game widely played in South India. Each team was required to design two robots to compete in two rounds. The referee gave each team the role of seeker or hitter.
Seeker robots had to throw balls to knock over a tower of Lagori discs (colored sponge blocks) and then pile them back up in the original order within a limited time, getting points according to the number of discs knocked down and piled up. Hitter robots fired balls to knock other balls off the top of plinths in four locations to shorten the amount of time their competitor had to pile up the discs.
Hong Kong’s young robotics talents
The CUHK robotics team developed a brand new 360-degree rotation wheel system for the robots, and gave the robots the ability to automatically move along the planned routes, offering higher manoeuvrability and speed. It is the product of two years of independent research, refinement and repeated testing by current and former team members.
CUHK’s Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering alumnus Billy Yip steered the team for the fifth time. ‘Everyone in the team is so enthusiastic and passionate about robotic design and programming,’ he said. ‘Repeated failures helped drive the team to go to great lengths. After evaluating the matches and learning from their mistakes, team members racked their brains to think of ground-breaking ideas. We worked day and night to develop the best solution for our goal.’
Prof. Martin Wong, CUHK’s Dean of Engineering remarked, ‘I am proud of our student team’s achievement in both the regional and international Robocon. They were bold enough to embrace challenges by applying innovative solutions to enhance the functions and performance of the robots.’
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