School Children Display Robotic Skills at RoboCup Junior Otago Challenge

The RoboCup Junior Challenge, which was held at the Otago Museum’s Hutton Theatre on the 9th of July, saw participation from around 90 school children from Dunedin schools.

The organiser of the event, Donald Liddell, mentioned that the students displayed dozens of Lego robots, which were assembled and programmed by them. The robots were expected to complete one of the three tasks of dancing or performing search and rescue operations or playing two-on-two football. This was the sixth year the competition was organised in Dunedin. Liddell explained that the RoboCup was organised for encouraging students to get involved in robotics and mechatronics.

Each of the robots were assembled from Lego kits and were programmed using on-board computers and infrared sensors, which allowed them to perform tasks like following an infrared football or tracing a black line etc. Liddell added that the robots think and solve problems autonomously. One student from the Otago Boys’ High School had displayed a pair of dancing robots, which he had been working on for almost a year. One of the robots could play a piano, while another displayed lights according to the tune of Piano Man by Billy Joel. Another student from OBHS had designed a squat mechanical friend robot that was able to find the way to a tin can and play the role of a victim in a search and rescue simulation.