Robots compete for top honour at UQ

The University of Queensland will host 300 school students and their robotic creations at the Robocup Junior Queensland Championships at the St Lucia campus on Saturday, August 16 and Sunday, August 17.

Around 100 teams from throughout the state have spent months preparing for the competition and will participate in five categories including: Soccer, Rescue, Premier Rescue, Junior Dance and Senior Dance during the two day event.

Members of the public are invited to experience the competition on Saturday, August 16 from 11am at the UQ Centre, Union Road, St Lucia. The competition wraps up on Sunday afternoon with the official prize ceremony from 4.30pm.

The RoboCup Junior Competition has been operating in Australia since 2000 and aims to encourage school students to take an active interest in the scientific and technological fields. The competition is an excellent opportunity to foster their interest by designing, making and programming robotic creations in an exciting and competitive environment.

Associate Professor Stephen Wilson from UQ's School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering (ITEE) said for young students, RoboCup Junior “offers a new way to develop technical abilities through hands-on experience with electronics, hardware and software and provides a chance to learn teamwork skills.”

"The University of Queensland is committed to fostering the growth of technology and robotics skills in young people as upcoming generations will be developing the technologies of the future and robotics is very likely be a key technology,” he said.

Expert tutors at UQ have developed workshops to help students and teachers alike to build their knowledge and understanding of the simple concepts that form the basis of robotics. They then use these skills in the classroom and work independently to assemble and program the robots that compete in the Robocup Junior Competition.

The robots will compete on a local level at UQ before the winners of the Queensland competition travel to Perth to compete in the Robocup Junior Australian Open Championships in September.

For more information, contact Ms Melanie Robertson (telephone 07 3365 7592, email: robocup@itee.uq.edu.au) or Dr Wilson (telephone 07 3365 4449, email: wilson@itee.uq.edu.au).