Robocon

Last weekend, we had a chance to drop by to see the quarter finals of the Robocon 2008 because it was held very near our home. It wasn't as exciting as the ones we've watched in 2005 and 2006, but it was fun nevertheless. Robocon is part of Robofest (Robot Festival), an annual event happening in Asia Pacific countries. It is a contest to design and construct robots that can perform certain task based on theme and rules. The host gets to lay out the task and rules. In the year Malaysia hosted Robocon back in 2006, the task is to build a twin tower, surprise surprise. The teams invited to participate are from local universities and colleges. I'd like to see the organiser open the contest to anyone who'd like to join - from schools or even as independents. But I suppose funds would be an issue. I've mentioned this before, but I'd like to see something like this as some sort of reality show. Something like the Nescafe Kickstart variety, but with building robots/machines or 'solving problems' generally as the contest.

The Robocon reminds me of a project we did in our second year uni. We had to build a robot that can sort 'black boxes' containing open circuits, short circuits, resistors, capacitors and transistors into designated containers. Each team comprised of 3 pairs, each pair took care of the mechanical bit, electronics bit, and programming bit. My team's robot could sort the black boxes, but failed to navigate around the arena because of poor programming. But what I remember most is the marker's remarks on my report - "This is not necessary" (or something to that effect) referring to the part where I had expressed disappointment on the non-success of the robot. I felt so silly - it's a report for goodness sake, not a diary! Is it a wonder why my dad thinks my car logbook should be titled 'Aku Sebuah Kereta?' Maybe I should start writing short stories instead on technical reports, hehe..