ITS team wins 6th robot contest
ITS team wins 6th robot contest
Evi Mariani, Jakarta
The 10th November Institute of Technology Polytechnic (PENS-ITS),
Surabaya, won on Sunday its sixth Indonesian Robot Competition at
the University of Indonesia in Depok, South Jakarta.
The team's three robots, called SIFAA, outshone runner-up
Wimatek-R from the Widya Mandala Catholic University of Surabaya
in a three-minute final with a score of 16-9.
The victory entitles the PENS-ITS team to a slot in the 2004
Asia Pacific Robot Competition, to be held on Sept. 11 in Seoul.
Members of the PENS-ITS team jumped up and down, shrieking
joyfully at their success, while Widya Mandala team members
hugged each other over their defeat.
The teams had advanced to the final after beating out 30 other
teams from 24 engineering schools from: Jakarta; Bandung;
Yogyakarta; Riau; Makassar, South Sulawesi; Lhokseumawe, Aceh;
and Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan.
The teams were assigned to design robots for a game called the
"Reunion of Rama and Sinta", a variation of the Asia Pacific
Robot Competition's theme: "Reunion of Separated Lovers Gyeonwoo
and Jiknyeo".
During the three-minute game, opposing teams were to use their
robots to reunite a yellow block -- "Rama" -- with "Sinta", a
yellow pole located about five meters away. The robot that
reunited the separated "lovers" won.
If no robot could reunite "Rama" with "Sinta", the winner was
decided by the highest points obtained through collecting "gifts"
of small, blue or red blocks.
During the two-day contest, only SIFAA succeeded in reuniting
the "lovers", at its first match on Saturday. All other matches,
including the final, was won by points.
"This is our sixth victory. We made the robot over two months
with a Rp 6 million (US$665) budget," said PENS-ITS lecturer Eko
Henfri. "But we have to fix the robot because one of its cables
broke."
"We have a chance to win in Korea, but we have tough rivals
from Thailand, Japan and Malaysia," he said.
A PENS-ITS team won the 2001 Asia Pacific Robot Competition.
The Ministry of National Education, which organized the event,
also held the Indonesian Artificial Intelligence Competition --
the first competition of its kind.
The Bandung State Polytechnic team's Evo 113, a robot on
wheels, beat out 11 competitors.
The University of Surabaya's Arachnid, a robot with spider-
like legs, overwhelmed its sole rival IR-HEX from the ITS.
Fourteen teams from 13 engineering schools across Java
participated in the competition, for which they were required to
design a fire fighting robot and extinguish the flame of a candle
placed in one of four rooms in a simple labyrinth. Each robot had
three tries, with additional points if it returned to its
starting position.
The winning Evo 113 succeeded in extinguishing the flame and
returned to its starting point -- it was also the audience's
favorite, because of its sleek design and speed.
The theme of the competition was adapted from the Fire
Fighting Robot Contest to be held next April at Trinity College
in Hartford, Connecticut.
It is not clear whether the government will sponsor the
winning team in the contest.