Student teams from ten Australian universities recently competed in the inaugural National Instruments Autonomous Robotics Competition, an event focused on inspiring student innovation in the field of robotics.
The winners of the 2011 competition were Team SUAVE from Swinburne University of Technology in Victoria, with Team RMIT CRITTER from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology taking out second place.
The competition tasks and objectives required students to demonstrate their skills in the robotics application areas of navigation, object handling and obstacle avoidance by developing an autonomous robot that would complete a set of predefined tasks in the shortest amount of time at the live competition, and ultimately earn them the most points.
Team SUAVE from Swinburne University (pictured alongside), completed all the defined tasks in just over three minutes – a fantastic achievement given that each team was allowed up to ten minutes.
Each team employed a unique approach to the development of their autonomous robot. The students demonstrated novel ideas and innovative concepts but a more structured approach and solid project management would have helped. Team SUAVE was the only one to complete the course.
"We can’t wait to see how the competing teams in the 2012 competition build on the innovation demonstrated this year," said Mark Phillips, Marketing Manager for National Instruments Oceania.
All teams that successfully competed on the day will maintain ownership of the competition development kits provided by National Instruments, which included NI LabVIEW and an NI CompactRIO embedded acquisition and control system.
National Instruments provided each team with a development kit featuring NI LabVIEW and a CompactRIO system. Maxon Motor also provided each team with a voucher for the purchase of precision motors.
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