Murdoch takes out top spot in national robot championships

A team of Murdoch College students and their robotic creations have danced up a storm at the Robocup Junior National Championships at Scitech, their magnificent moves seeing them beat a host of international competitors and win first place in the Secondary Dance Division.

Mason Lamotte, Eila Tolonen, Jacques Lehembre and Lewis Tolonen, aka "The AbDUCKtion Club" battled it out at the national event after their outstanding performance at last Tuesday's state competition.

"This year's entries showed a great deal of talent and potential," says Scitech's Robocup Coordinator, Craig Bloxsome. "It was great to see a Western Australian team come out on top, especially in the face of the exceptional skills and expertise of our international counterparts."

Robocup Junior is a national educational initiative that encourages primary and secondary school students to create innovative and unique robots using various technologies.

"All the participants took huge advantage of the opportunities the competition offered." says Craig. "They explored the field of robotics, which is an exciting and modern area of science and technology, and came up with some fantastic robots." 

13 teams from China, eight from Singapore and more than 20 from across Australia competed in this year's national competition at Scitech.

The students in the Dance division were judged via an interview where they had to explain how the robot was constructed. Their performance was judged by whether the robot moved in time with the music and performed interesting and dramatic moves.
 
The winners of the Rescue division were determined on a point basis. Robots gained points by following tiles through the obstacle course, and always following the black line.

In the Soccer division robots had to kick the ball through the goals and any robot that suffered an injury (e.g. pieces falling off) was taken out of play for 1 minute. In the end, the team that scored the most goals won.

"The entrants this year were very talented and achieved great results," concludes Craig. "They all gained a lot from the tournament, not only creating purpose built robots but gaining a stronger understanding of the technology involved. It will be interesting to see where they go from here, and the kinds of robots they come up with next year."

Robocup Junior is proudly sponsored by iiNet, Modern Teaching Aids (MTA), Murdoch University, The University of NSW, Wiltronics, Google, Lego Education, Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios, IEEE and Atamo.


For more information:
Jane Bootle / Scitech Media and Public Relations Coordinator
T: (08) 9215 0723 / M: 0430 180 989 / E: jane.bootle@scitech.org.au