Swinburne wins robotics challenge

Student teams from 10 of Australia’s universities competed in the inaugural National Instruments Autonomous Robotics Competition, a student competition focused on inspiring student innovation in robotics.

The winners were Team SUAVE from Swinburne University of Technology in Victoria, with Team RMIT CRITTER from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology taking second place.

Team SUAVE received a prize of $3000, with Team RMIT Critter receiving $1500. In addition, all teams that competed on the day maintain ownership of the competition development kits provided by National Instruments, which included NI LabVIEW and an NI CompactRIO embedded acquisition and control system.

The competition required students to demonstrate their skills in the robotics application areas of navigation, object handling and obstacle avoidance by developing an autonomous robot that would complete a set of predefined tasks in the shortest amount of time at the live competition and earn them the most points.

NI provided each team with a development kit featuring LabVIEW graphical system design software and a CompactRIO embedded acquisition and control system required to enable the development and control of their robot, as well as training and mentoring for all the students.

Maxon Motor also provided each team with a voucher to buy precision motors.

The event also featured several presentations from engineers and competing student teams, as well as a guest keynote presentation by Prof Peter Corke, Professor of Robotics & Control, School of Engineering Systems at Queensland University of Technology.

Competing teams came from: Curtin University; Macquarie University; Queensland University of Technology; Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology; Swinburne University of Technology; University of Adelaide; University of NSW; University of Sydney; University of Tasmania; and University of Technology Sydney.