Robotics competition grand final

27 student teams from universities across Australia and New Zealand will compete in the 4th annual National Instruments (NI) Autonomous Robotics Competition Grand Final at Macquarie University, Sydney on Thursday, 25 September.

The 2014 knockout competition final task focuses on agriculture. Themed 'Go, Sow, Grow!', team robots need to wirelessly communicate within their environment, collect seeds, navigate to a farming area littered with obstacles, deposit the collected seeds in designated planting areas, then navigate back to the home zone.

Matej Krajnc, managing director for National Instruments Oceania, said the competition helps prepare students for the workplace by teaching them valuable hands-on skills.

“The competition not only allows students to demonstrate their engineering and mechatronics skills on an international platform, it also teaches them how to complete a defined goal within time limits.

“The success rate of teams making it through the competition stages has been very impressive this year, with a diverse range of students across New Zealand and all six Australian states making it to this critical point in the contest,” said Krajnc.

The winner of the NI Robotics Competition will receive a cash prize of $3000, second and third place will collect $1500 and $750 respectively and a bonus prize of $500 will be rewarded for the best robot design. All teams that successfully complete the competition tasks get to keep the robot development kit, which features an NI myRIO reconfigurable hardware and NI LabVIEW system design software.

Universities competing in the competition final are:

NSW: University of New South Wales, University of Technology Sydney, University of Wollongong, University of Sydney, University of Western Sydney, Macquarie University, University of Newcastle.

Queensland: Griffith University, Queensland University of Technology, University of Queensland.

Victoria: La Trobe University, Monash University, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Swinburne University of Technology, University of Melbourne.

South Australia: Flinders University, University of South Australia.

Tasmania: Australian Maritime College.

Western Australia: Curtin University, University of Western Australia.

New Zealand: Manukau Institute of Technology, University of Auckland, Victoria University of Wellington, Massey University.

Last year, Victoria University of Wellington’s team won the competition with their robot, Michelangelo.

The competition will be held on Thursday, 25 September, 9am - 3pm, with the final round of the competition from 2.30 pm in the Lotus Theatre, Building W6D. Admission is free.