Frogstar takes out robotics competition

Swinburne University of Technology’s Team SUAVE was awarded first place in the National Instruments Autonomous Robotics Competition (NI ARC) with its trained robot, named Frogstar, beating 17 other teams from across Australia and New Zealand and taking out the coveted robotics prize for the second consecutive year.

The robots were required to traverse a chequered board while avoiding obstacles to collect coloured blocks and deposit them in squares with corresponding colours. Frogstar completed the course in just over four minutes to win first place.

Eighteen university teams from Australia and New Zealand competed in the search and rescue-themed final. The UOW (University of Wollongong) Robotics Team was the runner-up in the competition.

Matej Krajnc, Managing Director for National Instruments Oceania, said the competition allowed students to demonstrate their mechatronic and engineering skills on an international level.

“Each of the 18 teams competing in the final successfully completed four milestones over the past six months to qualify. Both Team Suave and the UOW Robotics Team had extremely impressive performances in the final; however, all of our finalists have made remarkable achievements throughout the competition,” said Krajnc.

“The competition gives students valuable experience working with advanced technologies and can broaden their career path options; as such, we saw a notable increase in participants for the 2012 competition.”

Ben Smith, leader of the winning Swinburne University of Technology team, said the competition was a great opportunity to get hands-on experience in robotics.

“The NI Autonomous Robotics Competition has been a great opportunity for us to exercise the practical knowledge we’ve gained from our studies and to interact with other engineering and mechatronics students. Having won in 2011, we decided to keep Frogstar small and compact rather than become too ostentatious, and it was definitely a decision that worked in our favour,” said Smith.

Swinburne University of Technology was awarded the first place prize of $3000, the University of Wollongong was awarded $1500 and a bonus prize of $500 was awarded to University of Newcastle, who were declared the winners of the most aesthetically pleasing robot award by the NI ARC judges. All of the teams that successfully completed the competition final get to keep the development kit, valued at over $27,000.

John McIntosh, Victorian President, Engineers Australia, and Professor Zhihong Man, Head of Robotics and Mechatronics at Swinburne University of Technology, judged the competition.

Tim Joseph, Senior Engineer in the Battlespace Communications Operations Group, Defence Materiel Organisation, discussed the engineering industry in a presentation given at the final.

Of the 24 teams which started the competition in March, 18 were able to complete four milestones to qualify for the final. The competition final was held at the Advanced Technologies Centre at the Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, as a result of the university having won the inaugural event in 2011.