Another long weekend is over, with 55 teams from around New Zealand descending on TelstraClear Pacific Events Center to compete in the 5th Kiwibots New Zealand National Vex Robotics Championships between March 1-3. In one of the most competitive VEX regions in the world, teams fought for six qualification spots to the World Championships in Anaheim, California. The impact of …
Chairperson’s Report – 2012 AGM
Having existed for almost two years, AURA has built a strong reputation, both in our local community and internationally. A re-organisation of our operations late in 2011 helped us focus our efforts into three key areas: competition, mentoring, and research. On the competition front, our club has done extremely well – after continuing on from our successes as the Robotics …
FIRST Lego League (FLL) Nationals 2012
The FIRST Lego League national championship was held at ACG Strathallan in South Auckland recently, with twenty teams from around New Zealand competing in the three aspects of FIRST competitions. The first part of the competition is the ‘Team Project’. Each team identified a problem faced by senior citizens in daily life, and designed a product to help the seniors …
Head Referee’s Feedback from Asia-Pacific 2012
Hi everyone, I have put together a document of my impressions and observations of the Asia Pacific competition from a rules perspective. I thought it might be helpful to people to see what some common mistakes were, so that they can avoid them in other competitions. Link: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/64849289/Asia%20Pacific%202012%20-%20Comments%20from%20Head%20Ref.pdf The rules are full of things you are not allowed to do, …
SMC Pneumatics College Scrimmage Dec 2012
Saturday 1 December saw the first ever New Zealand VEX Robotics College Competition event held outside of Nationals. With students attending from University of Auckland, Massey University (Albany and Palmerston North Campuses), Auckland University of Technology (AUT), Manakau Institute of Technology (MIT), and University of Canterbury (UC), it was easily the largest college event held in the country. Unfortunately, there …
RoboNZ Nov 2012
The AURA Electronics Research Team (ERT) competed in their first RoboNZ competition at the offices of NextWindow Ltd. today on Saturday 24 of November 2012. This competition is a continuation of our expansion of our competitive focus, having also competed at the National Instruments Autonomous Robotics Competition. A reasonably small competition with some very dedicated competitors, it focuses on desiging …
Big Boys Toys Scrimmage(s)
VEX Robotics made an appearance in the public eye last weekend, with a competition held at the ASB Showgrounds in conjunction with the ‘Big Boys Toys’ Expo. On Saturday the tenth, twenty-three teams competed in seven matches each, all vying for a place in the elimination rounds. AURA-mentored team 2950A, from St Cuthbert’s college, ranked first after qualification rounds as …
FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) Pilot
Last week AURA ventured into new territory, as the New Zealand FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) pilot competition was held in Papakura. Being organised by the same group who run FIRST Lego League, AURA were enthusiastically invited to be judges and referees at the event alongside the Kiwi FIRST volunteers. The FTC competition is based on the ethos of the FIRST …
August Sack Attack Scrimmage
It was Sack Attack time again in Auckland today as teams gathered at Onehunga High School for the monthly scrimmage. Having already had two Sack Attack scrimmages, teams now have a little more experience with the game and today was another opportunity to further test changes made to robot design and strategy. Over the 56 matches during the day, a …
AURA Quiz Night Fundraiser
With our growing team membership and the large number of high schools involved in our mentoring programme, AURA held a Quiz Night Fundraiser to assist in purchasing new materials, allowing us to continue with our workshops and volunteer work. Over 50 participants turned up to the University of Auckland Engineering building on a cold and rainy evening, forming teams and …