HKUST team crowned champion at Robocon 2018 Hong Kong

June 25, 2018

The Robocon 2018 Hong Kong Contest was successfully held on June 25 at the Hong Kong Science Park, showcasing students’ passion and innovative flair.

HKUST’s elite “Fiery Dragon” team was awarded the champion at the annual competition, winning the fiercely contested title ahead of 11 other teams from six tertiary and higher educational institutions. This was the ninth time HKUST won the competition since it was launched in 2004.

A more than 500-strong audience supported the enthusiastic participants, among them Dr David Chung Wai-keung, the Under Secretary for Innovation and Technology of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. He found the competition fascinating and said the style of the game reminded him of “Quidditch” in Harry Potter.

In fact, this year’s theme of “Shuttlecock Throwing” was inspired by a Vietnamese folk game. Two teams compete in each game. At the start, one manual robot from each team picks up the shuttlecocks and passes them to the automatic “shooter” robot, which then throws the shuttlecocks through rings.

The team collects points when the shuttlecock passes through one of the metallic rings in the court. The team that gets the highest score in three minutes wins. However, if the robot manages to throw the golden shuttlecock through the golden ring right onto the gold plate, that team will win right away.

Through participating in Robocon, students develop important practical skills, including programming, assembly and circuit design, among others. They also improve their communication and leadership skills and ability of working in teams.

After several rounds of competition, HKUST’s “Fire Dragon” team won the championship, followed by two teams from CUHK as first and second runners-up. “Fire Dragon” was praised for their outstanding artificial intelligence and robotics knowledge, as well as for their strong cohesion and passion for robotics.

At the end of the contest, Kelly Liu, the leader of the “Fire Dragon” team, said: “The biggest difficulty was to coordinate the ideas of teammates, but their willingness to make an effort and their unity were the key to our victory.” She added that there is still room for improvement and they will try their best to improve the work efficiency.

The winning “Fire Dragon” team will represent Hong Kong in the ABU Asia-Pacific Robot Contest 2018, which will be held in Vietnam in August.