University students can now enter the third National Instruments (NI) Autonomous Robotics Competition.
The 2013 robotics competition is themed “Gold Rush”, and will require university teams to design autonomous robots which can navigate an obstacle course, identify and handle projects.
Matej Krajnc, Managing Director for National Instruments Oceania said the competition allows students to demonstrate their engineering skills and broaden their career pathways.
“The competition is designed to give students valuable experience working with advanced technologies to create an autonomous robot, monitored by university supervisors and the NI team.
“Each year the friendly rivalry between the universities acts as motivation to all of our teams and we look forward to seeing what they create this year,” said Krajnc.
To compete in the final, all entered teams must successfully complete four milestone tasks over the next few months, to ensure they are making sufficient progress and to meet the technical requirements.
The winner of the NI Autonomous Robotics Competition will receive a prize of $3000, with $1500 for the runner-up and a bonus prize of $500 for the best robot design.
All teams that successfully complete the competition tasks get to keep the development kit, valued at over $20,000.
The 2012 competition, won by Swinburne University of Technology’s SUAVE team with their robot, Frogstar, saw 24 teams from across Australia and New Zealand compete.
The competition will run from April through till the competition final in September 2013, entries close 15 March 2013.