More and more university students are interested in creating robots, as seen at the 2017 National Robot Contest in the gymnasium of the Indonesian University of Education (UPI) in Bandung on July 8 and 9. Ninety-three teams from 48 universities took part in the competition’s five categories: the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union robot division, the fire extinguisher robot division, the soccer humanoid division, the roller soccer robot division and the traditional dance robot division.

Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University was the overall champion after collecting one gold medal in the fire extinguisher category and a bronze in the dance category.

The annual competition has taken place since 2004. It is aimed at developing the students' and lecturers’ creativity in robotic technology.  

The Brahmana team from the Institute of Sciences and Technology Industrial Academy in Yogyakarta, which won the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union robot category, will represent Indonesia at the 2017 Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union Robocon from Aug. 26 to 28 at the Ota Gymnasium Center in Tokyo.

The robocon’s theme is “landing disc” and all participants are required to create a 24-volt or less robot that has a disc container. The rules of the contest take inspiration from the traditional Japanese game Tosenkyo. The mission of a robot is to knock beach balls off flying discs and replace each ball with a disc. Pressure in the competition is high because of the time limit with other participating countries. [yan]