Team AURA (Auckland University Robotics Association) from the University of Auckland were the College Division runners-up at the VEX Robotics World Championship held in Anaheim, California last month.
AURA sent two teams to compete at the World Champs, with AURA2 also putting in a strong performance reaching the round-of-16 during a single elimination bracket. With the winner of the best-of-3 matches advancing to the quarterfinals, AURA2 lost 2-1 to team TGTZ1 from La Universidad Tecnologica de Gutierrez Zamora from Mexico. This was also the team that went onto contest the grand final against AURA.
For just their second season in the VEX Robotics Competition, it was a competitive showing by AURA at the World Champs, held at the Anaheim Convention Centre. AURA’s results in Anaheim capped off a successful season. Before leaving for the World Champs, AURA was announced as the winners of the 2012 Autodesk Inventor Digital Prototyping (Computer-Aided Design) Challenge for creating a full-sized humanoid robot in Autodesk Inventor.
VEX Robotics is an international competition with Middle School, High School and University divisions. Over 10 000 participants attended the World Champs, with AURA competing against teams from America, Colombia, Brazil, China, Puerto Rico and Mexico. Each season the competition game is different, requiring teams to design, build and program new robots while also mastering a new set of rules and strategies.
The 2011/2012 game was called Gateway which involved university teams building two complementary robots to pick up barrels and balls, scoring them into fixed goals. The game consisted of a 60 second autonomous period followed by an 80 second driver-controlled period. The objective was to score more points than your opponents, with the opportunity to earn bonus points as well double or negate goals with special barrels.
Since returning to New Zealand, AURA has had a busy start to the new season. Not only do they compete in the VEX Robotics competition, but the team of engineering, science, business, law and arts students are also involved with robotics research, volunteering and mentoring.
AURA volunteers as mentors to eight high school VEX teams in the Auckland region. The mentoring programme allows AURA members to take the skills developed in their science and engineering degrees to provide sound technical support to high school teams. It is also an avenue for encouraging high school students to pursue studies in science, technology, engineering and math at tertiary level.
AURA is expanding each season with more university students joining and their growth is largely attributed to the continued support of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Auckland. AURA are currently running workshops to introduce new members to the VEX Competition and looking forward to exceeding expectations in the future.
