Annual robotics competition finals in Sydney

It’s the region’s biggest robotics showdown — two dozen autonomous robots designed by engineering students from across Australia and New Zealand will compete for robot supremacy in the National Instruments Autonomous Robotics Competition (NIARC).

For the first time, the competition will also welcome a team from one of Singapore’s top universities, the Nanyang Technological University, competing for the championship.

The live finals will take place Tuesday, 5 September 2017 at the University of Technology Sydney in front of hundreds of spectators and a panel of leading industry judges. The event is free to attend.

With a theme of ‘Transportation Innovation’, this year’s event will see the robots navigate a ‘smart city’, following road rules, adjusting speed in line with school zones and highways, picking up ‘passengers’ and returning home safely. Each robot’s objective is to earn the most points by completing the required tasks as quickly and efficiently as possible.

NIARC is a student competition designed to encourage development and innovation in the field of robotics. Over the last six months, the participants, ranging from first-year university students to PhD candidates, have had access to industry-leading hardware and software by NI to design and program intelligent vehicles.

“Today’s vehicles are supercomputers on wheels, but there are still so many exciting innovations to come. Car manufacturers are racing to bring autonomous vehicles to market and the technology has the potential to change everything about the way we move people and goods. That’s why we are so excited to be able to offer students the opportunity to be a part of that change,” National Instruments Vice President for Asia-Pacific Chandran Nair said.

“The industry will face increasingly complex systems and demands for improved speed, productivity and efficiency. By enabling the students to work with industry-leading hardware and software, we can help provide them with the real-world skills needed to become tomorrow’s top engineers.”

Now in its seventh year, NIARC has grown from just 11 teams to more than two dozen, all from leading Australian and New Zealand universities. Previous winners include University of Wollongong (2016), University of South Australia (2015) and University of New South Wales (2014).

Participating universities for 2017 include:

• University of Auckland (NZ)
• Curtin University (WA)
• Edith Cowan University (WA)
• Flinders University (Vic)
• Macquarie University (NSW)
• Massey University (NZ)
• University of Melbourne (Vic)
• Nanyang Technological Institute (Singapore)
• University of New South Wales (NSW)
• University of Tasmania (Tas)
• University of Technology Sydney (NSW)
• University of Queensland (Qld)
• RMIT University (Vic)
• Swinburne University of Technology (Vic)
• University of Waikato (NZ)
• Western Sydney University (NSW)
• University of Wollongong (NSW)
• Victoria University of Wellington (NZ)