ROBOCON National Chamionships

INDIA	THAILAND	SRILANKA
VIETNAM	JAPAN	FIJI
NEPAL	MONGOLIA	MALAYSIA

The national competition, ‘ROBOCON INDIA’ for ABU ROBOCON was held at Maharashtra Institute of Technology in Pune on 8 & 9 March. It was Nirma University, Institute of Technology (Nirma) who ruled the roost in the final match against Maharashtra Institute of Technology (MIT).

The winner of Robocon India...NIRMA

A Moment from Final Match ( MIT Vs NIRMA) ROBOCON India 2008

Nirma had won the event 3 times in 2002, 2003 and 2006 in prior to last week’s feat. MIT, who will co-host the ABU ROBOCON PUNE-INDIA with Doordarshan, became as the runner-up and will also proceed to the upcoming international contest in August.

At the semi-finals, MIT defeated the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT) who won the last year’s champion title and made the over packed venue go wild.

The contest was entered by 38 teams from 13 provinces across the country, an increase by 13 from last year. On 8th, teams competed in the preliminary rounds that lasted almost until mid-night and 8 teams made their way to the semi-finals on the following day.

Doordarshan, joining hands with MIT, aired the event and related programmes intensively from 6th to 10th March. They aired curtain raisers, opening ceremony, preliminaries, final matches and so on, some of them live on their channels DD-1 (national network), DD-Sports and DD-Sahyadri (local) to help promote the concept of ROBOCON and significance of technical development.

Local newspaper, ‘The Times of India’ featured the event with photos for 2 days. It explains that ROBOCON has received nationwide media attention in the host country that is gearing up for the ABU ROBOCON 2008 PUNE-INDIA in August.

The new champion of Thailand is
Sakonnakhon Technical College!

The ABU Robot Contest Thailand Championship 2008 was held on 14 & 15 June. Total of 32 teams, 16 from university and 16 from technical college that got through fierce preliminaries took part in the contest. The venue was filled with energy and cheerfulness of university supporters and audiences. Some ardent university supporters continued their vocal support so passionately even though the lunch time. It made us wonder where such energy came from. On 15th, the day of the final match, Modernine TV broadcasted matches of the best 8 teams for 2 hours from 15.00 hrs.-17.00 hrs.

4 teams that proceeded to the semi final matches were: 1.iRap Ruddster –King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi (Bangkok) 2.INCHOATION - King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi(Bangkok) 3.Hoi Lod – Samutsongkhram Technical College (Samutsongkhram Province) (The Thailand Champion in 2004 and 2006) 4.PEM. 2008 – Sakonnakhon Technical College (Sakonnakhon Province) Among them, iRap of King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi and PEM of Sakonnakhon Technical College made it to the final game. In the final match, the team that wins 2 out of 3 games will be the champion.
The fantastic game has finally started with the referee’s whistle. One of the fastest robots from Sakonnakhon dashed to the Central Bowl before the opponent and blocked opponent’s automatic robots’ way, then the 2 automatic robots of Sakonnakhon gracefully moved to grasp the Yellow Butter, White butter and as many as 4 Pots and Cheese. Sakonnakhon clinched the 1st game.

King Mongkut’s cannot afford to lose the 2nd game although to most people, Sakonnakhon appeared to have more advantages. But anything can happen at ABU ROBOCON. As a result, King Mongkut’s won over Sakonnakhon this time. Now, both teams have an even chance to go to Pune, India.
Encouraged by strong support by their university supporters and audience, both teams had full confidence to win the game. However, in just an eye bilking moment a protector robot of Sakonnakhon reached to the Central Bowl and blocked the opponent’s way again, just like a déjà vu of the 1st game and snapped champion cup at the Thailand Championship for the very first time.
The team name, PEM stands for Electrical Power Section, Electricity Section, and Machinery Section, meaning 3 sections in the same faculty have collaborated in this project. Along with the Thailand Championship, the annual robotic show ‘Technology Street 2008 Exhibition’ was also held in the nearby hall, drawing over 25,000 visitors over the weekend.

University of Peradeniya represents Sri Lanka

University of Peradeniya (UoP) was selected to represent Sri Lanka at ROBOCON 2008 as a result of an internal competition with University of Moratuwa conducted by Independent Television Network (ITN) in May. It will be our 4th consecutive time to appear in the international arena.
UoP team has been working quite enthusiastically on the project since last September when we lost ROBOCON 2007 in Hanoi. The team comprises of undergraduates from Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Production Engineering and Computer Engineering specializations and headed by Dr. LIiantha Samaranayake.
Being a team with four years of past experience, ROBOCON is still one of the most challenging competitions for us because of difficulties in obtaining the required hardware on time. However, over the past few years we have worked out in many ways to implement several mechanisms to get over such obstacles and we are happy with the progress m
We believe in endless efforts, dedication, skills and talents with up to date knowledge, as the foot steps in the success. ROBOCON allows us to share knowledge and buildup friendship with students from the Asia-Pacific region. We take it as a great pride to represent Sri Lanka in a prestigious interna
Further, UoP team is thankful to ROBOCON secretariat for organizing this event, enormous guidance and the financial assistance. We are hopeful that we can do a better performance than the performances of previous occasions. We wish the very best to all participating teams

Hanoi University of Industry did it again!

A much anticipated annual event in Vietnam, Robocon Vietnam was held at Quan Khu 7 Sport Center in Ho Chi Minh City for 6 nights in a row on the first week of June with 32 teams participating. Over 18,000 spectators turned out to see the exciting competition and show.
They are the top 32 out of 273 teams that go through the regional contests held in Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City in April.
It was Hanoi University of Industry who won the championship this year. They were the 1st runner-up at last year’s domestic contest. However, being a host country, they represented Vietnam at the ABU ROBOCON 2007 HANOI with Polytechnic University, the University of Da Nang.
Hanoi University of Industry will participate in the ABU ROBOCON 2008 PUNE-INDIA representing Vietnam in this August.

Toyohashi University of Technology
won the 2nd championship in 6 years!

The NHK University ROBOCON for ABU Asia-Pacific Robot Contest was held on Sunday, 8th June in Tokyo.
The contest committee of the contest received 71 applications from 52 universities by early December 2007. Among them, 21 teams who passed document screening and video screening took part in the contest.
In the preliminary league, 21 teams were divided into 7 groups and each team competed twice

The University of Tokyo, which won the championship in 2005 contest achieved GOVINDA in their first game, showing off their quick and precise performance. In their second game, they met with Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (TUAT) who was the winner of the 2006 contest. It was TUAT who defeated the University of Tokyo at the final match of that competition. Will the University of Tokyo pay back? The venue went wild with excitement. This time, victory smiled on the University of Tokyo and they proceeded to the final tournament.
In the preliminary league, TUAT won once and lost once. However, with the high score, they proceed to the finals by wildcard. Waseda University, in spite of being a first-timer, proceeded to the final tournament with Kitami Institute of Technology, Nagoya Institute of Technology, Nagaoka University of Technology, Mie University and Toyohashi University of Technology.
It was Toyohashi University of Technology and the first-timer Waseda University who met at the final match. As a result, Toyohashi finally won over Waseda by 9-0. It was their 2nd victory in 6 years since ABU ROBOCON 2002 TOKYO.
In the interview at the closing ceremony, team members of ‘Toyohashi Robocons’ talked about their aspiration for the forth coming ABU ROBOCON 2008 PUNE-INDIA.

University of the South Pacific represents FIJI

A team of six undergraduate students from University of the South Pacific (USP), Fiji are currently preparing for the forthcoming ABU ROBOCON 2008 PUNE-INDIA

USP has been representing Fiji for the last six years. Since 2002, aspiring locally trained would-be engineers have participated in the ROBOCON competitions to put their technical capabilities and ideas to task.
ROBOCON has a huge fan following in Asia-Pacific region. Fiji has won the "Best Artistic Design" award in 2002 in Tokyo and we nearly missed winning in all competitions, which encourages the students to keep their hopes alive for the next round.
It has been a wonderful experience for all of us to be part of Team ROBOCON 2008. Robotics is not taught as a course or unit in USP, thus the team had to put a lot of their own time, effort and ideas to work on this project. The team has designed its own machines, both manual and autonomous right from scratch. There has been a great interests and initiative from the team to work on the project. ABU ROBOCON gives us students a chance to meet young engineers from other countries, share ideas and much more. We would like to acknowledge ABU for organizing such competitions.

Tribhuvan University, Institute of Engineering (IOE)

Team Instructor:
Er. Ramesh Chaudhary
Team Leader:
Dinesh Twanabasu
Team Members:
Dinesh Twanabasu, Saroj Thapa, Suraj Amatya and16 stud

After returning from ABU ROBOCON 2007 Hanoi, the ROBOCON team immediately started working for the next one. This year the enthusiasm and anticipation for the competition is even higher as it will be held in our neighboring country, India. So a large group of students turned up to join this project.
As we don’t have a faculty dedicated to robotics and automation, our knowledge in robotics was only limited at the beginning. To begin with we studied the mechanism of old robots and understood the basic mechanism.
The toughest part was to choose the right material for mechanical components and basic design of the robots. We searched different algorithms and navigation techniques and studied many journals and technical papers related to robotics. After hours of searching the internet, we finally got an idea what our robot would look like.
However, finalizing the robots’ design was also challenging. Some of the designs were more than simple and others too complicated that implementation of the model seemed almost impossible. So we decided to follow “KISS”, “Keep It Simple Stupid” a popular phrase among robot hobbyists.
Then we visited junkyards in town looking for parts such as rare ICs, steel channels and so on. The parts unavailable here had to be imported from abroad. It was as if assembling robots from scraps.
We were divided into different groups respectively looking after sensors, programming & interfacing and driver circuits. Each group, after going through a research and experiment, did a presentation in front of
other group members to share the results.
In a short time the bond between the team members grew very strong. It maybe natural because we work together into midnight after lectures everyday.
It has been a great experience and a test of our theoretical knowledge in practical field. We have learnt how a system is completed working as a team. ROBOCON has been a great learning curve for us to prepare ourselves for our professional career too. It has made us optimistic about our capability to make a better future and contribute for the development of our country.
We wish all other participating teams are having a great time preparing for the ABU ROBOCON.
We are looking forward to the competition in Pune.
Members Robotics

NUM represents Mongolia 2 years in a row!

The 7th ROBOCON MONGOLIA for ABU ROBOCON was held at the Mongolian Wrestling Palace on 24-26 April. Total of 222 students, 27 teams from 16 universities including 4 first-timers took part in the competition. The venue was quickly filled with excited audiences and their cheering voices.
The glorious victory went to National University of Mongolia. The university is the defending champion of last year and they will participate in the ABU ROBOCON two years in a row.
Mongolian National Broadcaster will broadcast all of the games in 10 episodes, an-hour programme each on weekends.

Multimedia University
The Champion of Robocon Malaysia 2008!

As previously informed, Robocon Malaysia took place at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) with an all-time high participation at the end of March. Here’s the report from Mr Chia-Chieh Thum, lecturer of the Multimedia University, this year’s champion team. It is going to be their 3rd time to represent Malaysia at the ABU ROBOCON since 2002 and 2006.
Starting from 26 March 2008, 64 teams from 31 higher learning institutions began their attempt to “touch the sky” in Robocon Malaysia 2008. On 30 March, Multimedia University conquered the sky and emerged as the champion.
Multimedia University deployed three teams into the Robocon arena and team MMU1 from the Faculty of Engineering and Technology made its way for the final round. Supported by over 25 dedicated members and experienced supervisors, Multimedia University has again pushed beyond its limits, emerging as the champion and also winning the best engineering award. The experience harvested and friendship bonded through the competition is invaluable to us. These will be the greatest motivation for us to perform better in the future and to promote knowledge sharing among institutions of higher learning.
We are now looking forward to meeting all participants from other countries/regions on 31 August at the ABU ROBOCON 2008 Pune-India. Together we share, together we care. For you, Malaysia!