Crowds thrill to action of 'takraw'-playing robots

Zakki Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Both teams were very tense, then the whistle blew.

The red team aimed the ball at the ring, and it went in.

Two more points for the red team.

Supporters were uneasy with the situation.

The opposing blue team now went to shoot.

And yes, it went in perfectly. A total of five points for the blue team.

Hundreds of spectators went wild, cheering and singing at the same time, rocking the hall where the game took place.

The final score was 24 to 18 for the blue team.

Was it a basketball game?

No, it was not. One would never guess, judging from the euphoria of the crowd, that it was actually a game played by robots. Who could have thought that a takraw (ball made of rattan) ball game played by steel-cold robots could be so entertaining and thrilling?

The game was a part of the Indonesian Robot Competition 2003, held on Saturday in the hall of the University of Indonesia (UI), Depok, "Takraw Game Spirit of Asia."

It was a very unique event, with robots trying to find their own way and insert balls into 27 baskets in a six-meter-diameter area. More interesting and delighting was that the robots were made by Indonesian students.

About 60 robots designed by 32 teams from 25 universities from across the country participated in the competition, with the winner to represent Indonesia in the Asia Pacific Robot Competition in Bangkok, Thailand, in August.

The winner was A.I. Syah, a robot designed by a team from the Sepuluh November Institute of Technology (ITS) Polytechnic in Surabaya.

The competition has been held four times since 1994, all in Surabaya. This year was the first time for the competition to be held in Jakarta.

Dadet Pramadihanto, coach of the winning team, told The Jakarta Post that the competition in Surabaya usually attracted treble of those attending the competition that day.

"Maybe there is a lack of promotion or the event simply is considered not interesting by Jakartans," he said.

He said such a competition was very important, because it showed the real potential of Indonesian human resources to the public.

"The industry can see from this competition that Indonesian youngsters are capable of designing such complicated robots, which proved even better than those made by foreigners," he said.

In fact, teams from ITS have been dominating robot competitions in the last couple of years. In 2001, a team from the institute won an International Robot Competition in Koriyama, Japan, held by NHK TV station.

The winning robot in the 2001 competition was called B-Cak.

Dadet said that more attention was needed for such a competition to provoke youngsters' creativity.

Leader of the winning team, Hasan Habibi, said he participated in the competition because of his hobby in mechanical engineering.

Meanwhile, Arkhadi Pustaka, a member of the runner-up team from Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta, said that his team's intention was to motivate their younger classmates to participate in the competition next year.

"This is the first time UGM has participated. We have no target so far. It's a hobby and we basically did it just for fun," he said.