The regional round of this year’s RoboCup Junior New Zealand “Battle of the Bots” saw more than 140 Otago primary and secondary school students compete at the Otago Museum in Dunedin, New Zealand on Saturday 6 July. RoboCup Junior is a New Zealand national robotics competition that gives school children a chance to learn about robotics and programming.
ADInstruments, along with other Dunedin-based technology companies Scott Technologies and MilMech, sponsored this year’s event – contributing trophies, prizes and judges. Competitors in the junior (primary/intermediate school) and senior (secondary school) divisions competed in three categories: Theatre, Soccer and Rescue. The winners from each division of the competition will compete again at Nationals in Auckland on the 7th of September.
“It showcases their skills. They start with Lego robots, which are essentially just plug and play, and move on to complex computer languages and start making their own robots.”
Donald Liddell
Otago Robotics Education Committee Chairman
ADInstruments’ employees, John Enlow (Development Manager) and Mary Gill (Software Testing Coordinator) judged the junior theatre division and “were impressed with the level of programming that we saw throughout the day but in particular by the winning team - Dr Who and the Kaik travelers from Kaikorai Primary School”. Sam Paulin (ADInstruments Software Tester) judged the soccer division and was excited to see the competitions first soccer robots having been built from scratch by Kings High School pupil Philip Anderson (winner of Senior Soccer and Best Programming Prize).
The Theatre Division is a stunning integration of Science, Technology and the Arts. Participants program their robots to move with a soundtrack.
- Junior Theatre Winners: Tobias Devereux and Oscar McConaughy, Kaikorai Primary School.
- Senior Theatre Winners: Rose Fallow and Sarah Macindoe-Baker, Otago Girls' High School
The Search & Rescue Division mirrors the real life use of robots that rescue people from life-threatening situations.
- Junior Search & Rescue Winner: Elliott Alloo, Kaikorai Primary School
- Senior Search & Rescue Winners: Jaafer Almahary and Gongrui Sun, Otago Boys' High School
The Soccer Division is where students are required to design and program two robots to compete against an opposing pair of robots by kicking an infra-red transmitting ball into their designated goal.
- Junior Soccer Winners: Sam Hewson, William Scharpf, Madeline McCane and Heather Robertson, OU Computer Science Robotics Club.
- Senior Soccer Winners: Philip Anderson, King's High School
Competitions like this provide an excellent way for students to get immersed in programming, testing and electronics. Having support from local businesses help students to see that the skills gained from the competition are relevant to the various IT career pathways that they may be interested in taking. The competition also supports the new Digital Technology curriculum so teachers can assess student work for the competition so that they can attain credits at NCEA level 1, 2 or 3. ADInstruments supported the event by contributing a prize for each winning senior team and spot prizes to those we felt had an exceptional performance on the day. Winners will receive a tour of our new state of the art research and development facility where students will get to see how our projects make a real difference.