The robotics team from The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)\u2019s Faculty of Engineering received the Grand Prix Award at the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union\u2019s Asia-Pacific Robot Contest (ABU Robocon), which was held online on 21 August. It was the second time CUHK took the award and is a testament to CUHK\u2019s top-level robotics and innovation education.<\/p>\r\n
The CUHK robotics team was selected to represent Hong Kong in the ABU Robocon after winning the championship at the Robocon 2022 Hong Kong Contest organised by the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) in June this year. Since ABU Robocon\u2019s inception in 2002, CUHK robotics team has advanced to five finals (2016, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022) of this international trophy, and in 2019 became the first Hong Kong team to win the championship. This year, ABU Robocon was held online in New Delhi, with 13 regional winning teams from universities, colleges and academies in 12 countries and territories across the Asia-Pacific region competing in the final.<\/p>\r\n
Professor Martin D. F. Wong<\/strong>, CUHK\u2019s Dean of Engineering remarked, \u201cThe Faculty of Engineering is committed to nurturing next generation engineering professionals in Hong Kong. I am proud of our student team\u2019s achievement in both the regional and international Robocon. They were bold enough to embrace challenges by applying innovative solutions to enhance the functions and performance of the robots. This represents not only about their hard work paying off, but also our world-class education getting recognition. I sincerely hope that our students will continue to keep striving for the best.\u201d<\/p>\r\n Team leader and alumnus of CUHK\u2019s Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering Billy Yip Chun-wa<\/strong> has a wealth of experience, captaining the CUHK team at ABU Robocon for the fifth time this year. He was overjoyed by the team\u2019s victory, for which he credits the team members\u2019 tireless efforts. \u201cEveryone in the team is so enthusiastic and passionate about robotic design and programming,\u201d he said. \u201cRepeated failures helped drive the team to go to great lengths. After evaluating the matches and learning from their mistakes, team members racked their brains to think of ground-breaking ideas. We worked day and night with each other to find out the best solution to our goal. The understanding and friendship are what we treasured most in the process.\u201d<\/p>\r\n \u201cThe victory of CUHK\u2019s robotics team signifies that Hong Kong tertiary students are talented in I&T, HKSTP will continue to collaborate with world-class local universities to nurture future leaders, who contribute to the growth of Hong Kong\u2019s I&T ecosystem,\u201d said Dr Crystal Fok<\/strong>, Head of STP Platform of HKSTP.<\/p>\r\n Enhanced design is key to winning<\/strong><\/p>\r\n The theme of this year\u2019s contest, Lagori, was inspired by a traditional game widely played in South India. Each team was required to design two robots to compete in two rounds. The referee gave each team the role of seeker or hitter. When CUHK played as seeker, the team threw balls to knock over a tower of Lagori discs (coloured sponge blocks) and then piled them back up in the original order within a limited time, getting points according to the number of discs knocked down and piled up. When its opponents played as seeker and CUHK as hitter, CUHK team fired balls to knock other balls off the top of plinths in four locations around the field to shorten the amount of time competitor had to pile up the discs.<\/p>\r\n The CUHK robotics team developed a brand new 360-degree rotation wheel system for the robots, and gave the robots the ability to automatically move along the planned routes, offering higher manoeuvrability and speed. It is the product of two years of independent research, refinement and repeated testing by current and former team members.<\/p>\r\n Video recording of the competition:<\/p>\r\n