UMPBot competed in ROBOCON 2018

Kuala Lumpur - A group of students from Faculty of Manufacturing Engineering, Faculty of Electrical and Electronics Engineering and Faculty of Mechanical Engineering took three months to create a robot and competed in ROBOCON 2018 that was held at Seri Sarjana Hall, UNITEN, Bangi.

Programme director, Asril Aizal Mohd Roslan, 23, from Faculty of Manufacturing Engineering said, to produce a robot is never an easy job. It requires mental and physical strength, time sacrifice as well as high self-discipline in each and every members of the team.

According to him, UMP had participated in the ROBOCON competition in 2013 and has ever since injected the spirit of the UMPBot team to take part in the competition this time.

“We started our training since the first semester break. Although at first there is only a few who commit, but towards the end of the semester break, more member coming in and give full commitment for this competition.

In this competition, responding time to the opponents, adhere to the competition rules, timeliness as well as the throwing method of the robot was taken into account and evaluated”, he added.

Although the team did not win, but the experience gained from this competition is priceless. UMPBot is determined to participate and win ROBOCON 2019 at national and international levels.

Meanwhile, UMPBot Advisor, Dr. Saifudin Razali said student’s participation in this competition is good in exposing them to the robotic development and in realizing the 2050 National Transformation aspiration, which is to expand the digital applications as well as virtual gateways and automation.

The competition was organized by the Ministry of Higher Education in collaboration with Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM) and Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN) in line with the Industrial Revolution 4.0 to produce student talent and to spur the country's robotic landscape.

The opening ceremony of ROBOCON Malaysia 2018 was officiated by the Director General of Higher Education, Datin Paduka Ir. Dr Siti Hamisah Tapsir. Also present was UMP Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation), Professor Dato’ Dr. Mashitah Mohd. Yusof.

A total of 36 teams involving public and private universities, Industrial Training Institute, High Technology Centre and Institut Kemahiran Mara participated in the competition that was introduced by the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) in 2002.

In this competition, UTM A team from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) was crowned as the national RoBOCON champion in the competition that was held at UNITEN, Bangi. With this winning, UTM is qualified to represent Malaysia at the International ABU ROBOCON competition in Vietnam this coming August. Runner-up goes to UTM B while third place is owned by International Islamic University Malaysia and TATI University College.