The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Sarawak Subsection in collaboration with Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Science of Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus held the second edition of IEEE Sarawak Robotics Competition in Kuching on 23 November 2019. The competition aims to nurture and stimulate students’ interest in the area of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). This competition also serves as a platform for students to demonstrate their creativity and innovativeness in solving engineering and technology problem. Furthermore, the participants were also expected to develop their ability to work in a team and cultivate their spirit of sportsmanship. The participants comprised of 40 secondary school students competing in Junior (Forms 1-3 and equivalent) and Senior (Forms 4-6 and equivalent) categories.
SMT Sejingkat emerged as the champion of the Senior category in a tight competition beating the runner-up, SMK Jalan Arang who breathtakingly finished the race only 0.40 seconds behind the champion’s record of 22.59 seconds. Another team from SMK Jalan Arang won the third place.Two teams from SMK Jalan Arang bagged the champion and runner-up of the Junior category while St. Joseph Private School won the third place. The champion, runner-up and third place winners were awarded with cash prizes of RM300, RM200 and RM100, respectively. On top of that, each winning team was also presented with one set of mBot educational robot kit.
In the Junior category, students competed in the Roborace challenge where they were required to programme a robot to race through the track in the shortest possible time while maintaining the robot within the track. The robots were fully autonomous and able to adapt to the track which unknown to the participants prior to the race.
Meanwhile, the Senior category participants had to devise a robot to compete in the Pathfinder challenge. Here, the robot was required to manoeuvre through a labyrinth and find the correct exit without prior knowledge of the labyrinth configuration.
In both categories, the participants were not only tested for the lap time but also on the robot performance and the technical robustness of the algorithm that they designed. Prior to this competition, the participants were trained in a one-day boot camp on introduction to robotics as well as basics in robot programming.
Source: Borneopost
