Competitions
How to get started
There are a lot of great resources online that will get you and your students confident with building and programming their robots. Some of these have been linked in the appropriate sections.
Robogals UQ also offer mentoring programs. We are very flexible with what this entails; the number of sessions that we can do for you and what we teach in those sessions is dependant on the needs of your students. More information on what Robogals UQ can do for your school can be found here. You can also contact us.
The University of Queensland also offer robotics workshops that range from the introductory to the advanced level. The introductory session introduces the students to basic movement and line following and the advanced workshop introduces students to artificial intelligence. These workshops are run throughout the year. More information on the workshops can be found from the University of Queensland here.
Competitions
RoboCup Junior is a robotics competition aimed at primary and secondary school students. The competition offers three levels of increasing complexity; Dance, Rescue and Soccer.
Dance
The RoboCup Junior Dance division gives the students the opportunity to integrate technology with their artistic and creative side. The students program their robots to dance to a tune of their choosing by cueing their robots movement with the beats in the music. There are two divisions within RoboCup Junior Dance; Dance Performance and Theatre Performance. The Dance Performance is limited to two robots, whereas the Theatre Performance can have any amount of robots. RoboCup Junior Dance is a good starting point for beginners in robotics.
Rescue
In the RoboCup Junior Rescue division the students are required to build and program their robots to follow a line to an "oil spill", represented by a green patch, and rescue the "person", represented by a silver can. There are two divisions within RoboCup Junior Rescue. One division is only required to push the can out of the oil spill and the other division requires the robot to pick the can up and place it on a red block. RoboCup Junior Rescue is an intermediate division for junior robotics.
There are a lot of great resources to get you and your students started for programming their rescue robots. There are some good examples that show line following, green-light detection and how to find the victim. These resources can be found at the RoboCup Junior website here.
Soccer
The RoboCup Junior Soccer division is for those students that love a challenge. The students are required to build and program two robots to compete against an opposing pair of robots. The robots will be programmed to "kick" an infra-red transmitting ball into their designated goals. The teams can choose to either have two robots that chase the ball and try to score goals, or they can have one attacker and a goalie. There are two divisions withing RoboCup Junior Soccer; Novice League and Open League. In the Novice League the robots must be LEGO robots up to 1kg and in the Open League the robots are only required to be less than 2.5kg.
There are a lot of great resources to get you and your students started for building and programming their soccer robots. The RoboCup Junior website has some information on how to get started with finding the ball and kicking it in the right direction. These can be found here.
The RoboCup Junior regional competitions will be held on Friday 4 May, 2012.
The RoboCup Junior state competition will be held on Saturday and Sunday, 25 - 26 August, 2012.
More information on RoboCup Junior can be found here.
FIRST LEGO League (FLL) is a competition where FLL issues a challenge in a particular theme in September of each year that groups of students need to complete. The competition has two parts; the Robot Game and the Project. In the Robot Game, the students are required to build and program a robot to complete a set of challenges. In the Project, the students are required to develop and present a solution to a problem that they have identified for the theme. The competition allows teams of up to 10 students, with one adult coach.
Registration opens in July, 2012.
More information on FLL and team registration can be found here.
