Highlights from RoboCup Junior Competition 2018 at UNSW – Five AARAS Education Teams coded their robots to dance on music

In August 2018, five AARAS teams participated in RoboCup Junior at UNSW in the On Stage category. On Stage category (previously known as Dance) requires students to program their robots to dance to music or tell a story using the robots. It may sound simple, however, it takes hours and hours of work to build and program the robot to dance in sync with the music. Experienced AARAS students were invited to participate in this competition and worked on this project during terms 2 and 3. We attend a practice event at St. Pius X college in the lead up to the competition where we gained valuable feedback from judges and other teams.

Robots with multiple motors and sensors are complex systems. A loose cable or a wrong port number in the code can make the robot malfunction. Our students had their fair share of issues, but we were really happy to see them meticulously work through them and resolve them.

We believe coding and robotics are only a medium to help grow students and prepare them for the digital future. The competition saw our students working together in teams, solving problems, working against deadlines, and above all, presented themselves as confident young individuals who represented their schools at the event.

Did we tell you that the students had so much fun and they danced with their robots as well!

Here are some highlights from the event.