Roobotic win for UQ team
Four University of Queensland students and their soccer-playing robots have collected two of eight awards on offer while representing Australia at one of the world's major robotic championships in Japan this month.
The students' entries Roobot One and Roobot Two won both the design and the best new technology sections of the Robocon 99 World Robotics Championships, filmed in front of a live audience of 10,000 people on March 7 and broadcast nationally.
Robocon is the most prestigious design and build competition for Japanese engineering students. The competition has attracted an annual TV audience of more than 15 million people since its inception in 1990.
In 1997 the competition was opened to international teams, with the University of Queensland representing Australia at Robocon 98, as the first team from outside Asia. The team was invited back for 1999 and has been invited again as the only team to represent Australia at Robocon 2000.
The University of Queensland was the only University team to win more than one category in the 1999 competition, which attracted 11 Japanese and nine international entrants to Koriyama City, in the mountainous Fukushima region of Japan.
Project manager/supervisor and PhD student in mechanical engineering and mechatronics Michael Lucas said team members had not appreciated before the competition that they had developed possibly the first pneumatic grip and lift system of its type in the world for their semi-autonomous robots.
The 12-volt self-contained system uses industrial strength components on mobile machines.
The system was used for the Robocon 99 competition based on the game of soccer, with two semi-automatic robots per team. Two teams battled for points for five minutes playing with 21 balls on a field the size of a basketball court. It was a knockout competition, with the winner continuing to the next round.
The Australian robots, constructed in the UQ Mechanical Engineering Department's MaD Lab (Manufacturing and Design Lab), are about 1.4 metres long and wide, and 1.5m tall. Although the machines are made from heavy sectioned aluminium, each robot weighs only 48kg and is fitted with a foam bumper to protect from impacts with other machines. As practical fashion accessories, the robots are covered in black tulle netting and foamcore sidings to protect the drivers from flying soccerballs.
Mr Lucas said the robots collected soccer balls and gripped them with the pneumatic clamps, then raised them 60cm, before kicking them out at 45 degrees over the bumpers.
The University of Queensland team group began preparing for Robocon last May, and the robot designs evolved as the final team composition changed. Construction was based on available parts and funds, and late changes in the rules sent from Japan.
Mr Lucas said the students completed final design work and construction during their summer break, and the robots made their first public appearance at the Dean's welcome to first-year engineers during Orientation Week at the University's St Lucia campus.
Team members are Mr Lucas, team captain William Twyford, Stephen Brammer (both fourth-year Mechanical and Space Engineering students) and Melissa Ness (a third-year electrical engineering student).
They raised the $40,000 plus project budget in two months, including the costs of prototype construction, robot construction and testing and transport.
Sponsors included Japanese broadcaster NHK, multinational pneumatics company FESTO, the Royal Children's Hospital in Brisbane, Adelaide-based wheelchair manufacturer Rollerchair, and Mechanimation Technology Services Australia.
Associate Professor David Radcliffe and the University's Mechanical Engineering Department also assisted the project through access to facilities such as the MaD Lab.
Team members were also invited as special guests for Karakuri, a combined mechatronics tradeshow and festival of creative robotics, held on March 8 in Koriama.
Mr Lucas said the Institution of Engineers (Queensland) had nominated the team in the research category for its Engineering Excellence Awards to be announced in Brisbane in July - the first student team nominated.
The UQ Robocon team will also show off Roobot One and Roobot Two at UQ Expo which will showcase the achievements of the University in teaching, research and community service. UQ Expo will be held at the University of Queensland's St Lucia campus on Saturday, May 29 and Sunday, May 30 from noon until 5pm each day.
For further information, contact Mr Lucas, telephone mobile 0419 737 869 or 07 3365 3593 email: lucas@mech.uq.edu.au
