Students compete at UQ to become national robotics champions

The University of Queensland will play host to the largest robotics competition for primary and high school students ever held in Queensland.

During September 6 and 7 about 200 schools from all around Australia and south-east Asia will compete in the annual RoboCup Junior Open Challenge run by UQ’s School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering (ITEE).

The Minister for Education Anna Bligh will present prizes in the three competition categories of dance, rescue and soccer.

Activities officer for the School of ITEE Lynne Launt said teams had been preparing all year, building and programming robots using LEGO(TM).

“The focus of RoboCup Junior is to educate children not only to understand science and technology but also to survive in a society where technology has infiltrated beyond the imagination of early science fiction writers,” she said.

“RobCup Junior does this in a fun, exciting and challenging environment.”

Ms Launt said RoboCup Junior was created to stimulate the interest of students into artificial intelligence and robotics by providing a standard problem where a wide range of technologies could be integrated and examined. She said the competition would serve as a basis for project-oriented education.

“The ultimate goal of RoboCup is that by the middle of the 21st century a team of fully autonomous humanoid robot soccer players shall play a soccer game against the human world champions,” she said.

Ms Launt said RoboCup Junior would promote learning, teamwork and enjoyment.
“RoboCup Junior provides a unique opportunity for participants with a variety of interests and strengths to work as a team to achieve a common goal,” she said.

The competition will be held at the UQ Centre, Union Road at the St Lucia campus between 9am and 6pm on both days.

The winners and runners up will be eligible to compete in the 2004 RoboCup Junior World Cup Competition in Lisbon, Portugal.

Media: For more information, contact Lynne Launt (telephone 07 3365 4195, email: lynne@itee.uq.edu.au) or Chris Saxby at UQ Communications (telephone 07 3365 2479, email: c.saxby@uq.edu.au).