By Zia Ahamed, Vice Chair , IEEE R10 Professional Activities
The R10 Robotics Competition is an event specifically created to encourage innovation and offers a hands-on opportunity to apply classroom theory to building a substantial piece of engineering that can serve a useful purpose.
The competition is open to IEEE students and Graduate members and is held in three stages, starting from initial rounds at the local IEEE Section level and progressing through the two stages at the Region 10 level. The competition assessment criteria at all three stages focus more on the demonstrated learning and personal development, usefulness, efficiency, and affordability of the robots.
In Stage 1 IEEE Sections organize local robotics competitions to select up to two teams to represent the Section and compete in Stage 2. IEEE Sections are also encouraged to organize robotics activities such as technical talks, hands-on workshops, and robotics competitions for school children to inspire young people to STEM. R10 provides funding for ten best proposals for conducting local robotics activities.
In Stage 2, R10 conducts an online selection process to pick the top ten teams/projects from the teams nominated by the Sections. At Stage 2, the competing teams are required to demonstrate their robot functions and answer judges’ questions in an online session.
Stage 3 is the final round for the top ten teams in which they are required to demonstrate the full functionality of the robot at a physical gathering organized by IEEE Region 10. IEEE R10 Robotics Competition 2024 final round was held at Meiji University Nakano Campus, Tokyo, Japan in parallel with IEEE R10 SYWL 2024. IEEE President-Elect Prof Kathleen Kramer opened the final round. IEEE President Tom Coughlin also attended the proceedings of the competition and delivered the closing address. This year the judging panel found two teams very close to claiming the first prize. After deliberation, the judges recommended both teams for the first prize.
First Prize:
Team Latency Zero (IEEE Kerala Section), Mar Athanasius College of Engineering, Kothamangalam, India for the project: Autonomous Landmine Detection Robot.
Team “ALBATROSS” (IEEE Madras Section), KIT – Kalaignar Karunanidhi Institute of Technology, India for the project: Under Water Robot for Inspection and Salvage
Second Prize:
Team NITRo (IEEE Nagoya Section), Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan for the project: Rescue Robot “IMAX”
Third Prize:
Team Trirobs (IEEE Karachi Section), Salim Habib University, Pakistan for the project: Robotic grasper with integrated haptic feedback mechanism
For the highlights of the 2024 R10 Robotics Competition final round please visit: https://robocomp.ieeer10.org/