HKUST Students Won Championship in Robocon Hong Kong Contest
A team of undergraduate students from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) School of Engineering (SENG) won championship in the Robocon 2011 Hong Kong Contest held in Cyberport yesterday. They will represent Hong Kong to compete in the ABU Asia-Pacific Robot Contest in Bangkok this August.
An inter-institutional contest for higher education students, the Robocon Hong Kong Contest encourages the design and construction of robots which must then complete a set of tasks. The contest was organized by Radio Television Hong Kong and co-organized by Hong Kong Computer Society, The Hong Kong Institution of Engineers and Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU).
The champion team “Fiery Dragon” is the only team among the eight which was able to complete all the required tasks in a game and gain full marks. Commentators attributed its outstanding performance to the robots’ remarkable speed and stable movement in performing the tasks. Students who operate the robots on the game field were also very calm and can achieve full control of the robots.
This year, eight teams from six higher education institutions participated. The team “Fiery Dragon”, which was one of the two teams representing HKUST, received the champion award.
The 45 participating students are members of the HKUST Robotics Team, which comprises 70 SENG undergraduate students. They encompass all of the School’s six departments, with local, Mainland and international students, and are supervised by Prof Zexiang Li and Prof Tim Woo, both from the Electronic and Computer Engineering Department.
The HKUST teams have a high-performing track record in the contest’s history. They represented Hong Kong in the international contest twice and brought home the 2nd Runner-up award in 2005. In 2012, the international Robocon contest will be held in Hong Kong.
The Robocon Hong Kong championship marks another achievement of the Robotics Team this year. In mid-June, other members of the team represented Hong Kong to participate in the Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV) Competition at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston and won the Design Elegance Award.
About The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) (www.ust.hk) is a world-class research university that focuses on science, technology and business as well as humanities and social science. HKUST offers an international campus, and a holistic and interdisciplinary pedagogy to nurture well-rounded graduates with global vision, a strong entrepreneurial spirit and innovative thinking. HKUST attained the highest proportion of internationally excellent research work in the Research Assessment Exercise 2014 of Hong Kong’s University Grants Committee, and is ranked as the world’s best young university in Times Higher Education’s Young University Rankings 2019. Its graduates were ranked 16th worldwide and top in Greater China in Global University Employability Survey 2018.
