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.