The HKUST Robotics Team was crowned both the first runner-up on the first day and the champion on the second day of the HKSTP Human-Robot Basketball Competition held in Hong Kong Science Park on March 11-12, 2021. Robots of university teams paired up with a human basketball shooter from the Park community and completed the tasks of passing, dribbling, and shooting to attain scores. The team with the highest score in all matches was titled the champion of the day.

The HKUST team was formed by nine engineering and science students from various disciplines, including electronic engineering, computer engineering, computer science, civil engineering, and mechanical engineering. They utilized their theoretical and practical knowledge gained from the HKUST Robotics Team and other courses to build a robot that was able to grab and hold multiple size 7 basketballs, which were later used for passing and scoring.

In the first half of the match, teams had to program a basketball robot to collect basketballs scattered on the field and passed them to the team’s human player standing in the receiving zone. In the second half, the robot needed to avoid obstacles and passed the ball to the human basketball shooter standing at the other end to shoot the ball.

With close collaboration between the robot and the basketball player, the HKUST team won nearly all the games on both days and achieved the highest score to be the champion on the second day of the competition. HKUST students had put their efforts into building a fully functional robot within limited time and shown their ability to react fast with an improved version of the robot on the second day.

This pleasing achievement was a result of creativity and collaboration from all team members, who supported each other to overcome challenges and were keen to exchange ideas. The team had quickly come up with a feasible solution according to the game rules and made good use of their existing resources on building and improving the robot. This competition also provided a great platform for them to apply what they have learnt from school and their previous competition experiences.

Hosted by the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) in its newly built basketball court, the competition invited four teams from two local universities (The Chinese University of Hong Kong and The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) and aims to promote a “Work. Live. Play. Learn.” innovation culture within the Park community.

Student list

Watch the videos of the competition on March 11 & March 12.

This news was prepared with the help of HKUST Robotics Team members LEE Lok-Yin and Nicole YUEH Chee-Lin, both Year 1 postgraduates from the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering.