Titled Robofest 2010, the floor belonged to the robots when the Sri Lanka Institute of Information and Technology (SLIIT) held its annual robotic engineering competition at their Malabe campus earlier this month. Fourteen teams each comprising five members were in the fray: their task- to design a robot and program it to traverse a maze from Point A to Point B avoiding any obstacles in its way.
Now began the fun. The auditorium erupted when the canny robots, each with a personality of their own veered off-course or, in one instance, actually pushing the obstacles out of the way.
The artificial intelligence of some of the robots was quite high - the winning robot, Interceptor, for instance, made it through the maze in the second round without hitting any obstacles. Bathurst, Interceptor’s conceivers, was extremely proud of their robot which, although not as fast as some of the other models, proved its worth in steering intelligently.
Also worth mentioning was the all-girl team Zeobot which designed Oozil – a disc shaped cutie which followed a set pattern of movement following any collision. What was initially a manoeuvre used to avoid obstacles instantly became Oozil’s only set of motion which made it bump into almost all the obstacles on the course much to the delight of the audience.
The event organised for students of the SLIIT campus was concluded with Bathurst taking gold. Next year, plans are to throw the event open to the public. Let’s just hope SLIIT will maintain this spirit of innovation.
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| Members of Team Centron discussing configuration before their robot Centrobot's second run |
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| Robot Manuka stuck at the border of the course while the audience cheers it on |
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| Team Bathurst being awarded Gold by the CEO of Orange Electric |
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