Red Rabbit, the Smart Car Team of HKUST Robotics Team, made a breakthrough in the 9th National Undergraduate Students “Freescale Cup” Intelligent Car Competition (South China Region) held in Wuhan University of Technology from 21st to 24th of July. With the efforts of the members, they attained four awards, including a Second Class Award and a Third Class Award in Optical Group, a Third Class Award in Electro-magnetic Group and a Certificate of Merit in Camera Balance Group. This has been the best result of the team since their first participation in 2011.

“Freescale Cup” Intelligent Car Racing has been organized by the semiconductor company, Freescale, for nine years. Over the years, it became a hot robotics event in Mainland China and aroused attention from students in related disciplines. It aimed to encourage students to apply circuit design and mechanics knowledge, embedded software programming skills and control theories in order to make the smart model cars racing on a complicated track with intersections, ramps, obstacles and S-curves for highest speed. According to the sensors used, the competitors were divided into three categories, the Optical Group, the Electro-magnetic Group and the Camera Balance Group. Teams from the Optical Group were required to identify the track by processing analog data obtained from linear CCDs while those from the Camera Balance Group relied on image processing through a camera with an extra requirement – standing up and racing with only two wheels. Besides, the Electro-Magnetic Group needed wireless sensors to detect the location of a signal wire located underneath the racetrack. The four sub-teams from Red Rabbit registered in all three categories.

With the help of old members, potential members were interviewed and trained last Fall Semester, and finally, eight of them were selected to join the team with three returned members. Hence, it was formed by 11 undergraduate students in total, mainly in Year 1 and Year 2, from different departments of the School of Engineering (SENG), in which four were from the Computer Engineering Program, three from Department of Computer Science and Engineering, one from Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and three are 4-Y program freshmen. They started preparing for the competition in Spring Semester. It was glad that the students, as beginners in robotics, received four awards in the racing among 345 teams.

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