The Robocon team formed by engineering students from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) represented Hong Kong to compete in ABU Asia-Pacific Robot Contest on 19 Aug 2012 and won the Best Idea Award for two consecutive years.

This year, Hong Kong is the host of the contest which attracted a total of 17 teams from 16 countries and regions. The theme of the contest–“Peng On Dai Gat, In Pursuit of Peace and Prosperity”–was set according to the Bun Festival, one of the most representative festivals in Hong Kong. Within the game, robots will be the bun-snatchers. They will travel through the Tunnel, cross the Bridge and land on the Island where the Bun Tower locates. They have to snatch the “Peng On Bun” in order to achieve “Peng On Dai Gat”.

HKUST's ‘War Dragon’ was formed by 23 students from various engineering departments. The team had earlier won the Championship, Best Engineering Award, and the Best Artistic Design Award in the Robocon 2012 Hong Kong Contest in June competing against teams from other local universities and institutes. HKUST's ‘War Dragon’ also earned the right to represent Hong Kong to participate in the ABU Asia-Pacific Robot Contest with the best team of another university.

The Best Idea Award in the ABU Asia-Pacific Robot Contest was presented to the team that demonstrated the most excellent idea in terms of structure of machines and strategy. HKUST’s three robots were carefully designed to achieve the highest stability. The manual robot continued to use three wheels in order to reduce the chance of touching the floor and hence the speed was increased. The automatic robots were equipped with sophisticated sensors on light and color which helped the robots land on the Island and snatch the “Peng On Bun” to achieve “Peng On Dai Gat” accurately.

The ‘War Dragon’ team was led by Prof Tim Woo, Director of Global and Community Engagement Program. Prof Woo said, “The student team impressively completed all the tasks in all matches in Preliminary Round, and entered Final Round Tournament with the second best game result among all 17 teams. Our team performed well in keen competition with China team in the quarter-final.”

The ABU Asia-Pacific Robot Contest is an annual Asian Oceanian College robot competition founded by Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union. The contest aims to advance engineering and computing technologies in the region, strengthen exchanges and create friendship among young people with similar interests. Other participating teams are from Mainland China, Japan, Thailand and Vietnam etc.