Robotics teams announced

The participating teams for the annual National Instruments Autonomous Robotics Competition, a student robotics competition designed to encourage development and innovation in the field of robotics, have been announced.

A total of 24 teams will take part in this year’s event, representing universities from across Australia and New Zealand. The competition, which begins in April and concludes in September 2012, will involve each team developing an autonomous robot that will ultimately compete in a live competition with the aim of autonomously completing a set of predefined tasks in the shortest time and earning the most points.

The theme for the 2012 NI ARC is ‘Search and Rescue’.

The students, working alongside NI engineers, will have the opportunity to showcase their robotics talents in front of a large audience from industry and academia at the live competition on 21 September 2012.

Teams from the following universities and tertiary institutions will be competing: Auckland University of Technology; University of Canterbury; Curtin University of Technology; Griffith University; Macquarie University; Massey University; University of Newcastle; Queensland University of Technology; Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology; Swinburne University of Technology; NSW Western Sydney Institute of TAFE - Mt Druitt College; The University of South Australia; The University of NSW; University of Auckland; University of Tasmania; University of Technology Sydney; Victoria University of Wellington; University of Wollongong; Charles Darwin University.

Within the theme, the robotics application areas of focus will be navigation, obstacle avoidance and object handling. Participating teams have each received a development kit featuring a CompactRIO embedded acquisition and control system and the LabVIEW 2011 Robotics Suite for developing their robots. Maxon Motor has also provided each team with a gift voucher to buy Maxon motors.

The winning team will receive $3000 cash and the runners-up will be awarded $1500 courtesy of National Instruments Oceania. There is also a cash prize for the most aesthetically pleasing robot.

Additionally, all teams that successfully complete the tasks in this competition, regardless of their finishing position, will keep their development kits valued at over $26,000.

Training, mentoring and competition objectives will be provided by NI application engineers who specialise in robotics applications.