The Australian Rescue and Soccer teams can be seen here:

Tasmanian Princes Street Primary Grade 6 student Yaya is on the second from the right. The three girls of the New South Wales RoboCup Soccer Team can be seen 4^th, 6^th and 7^th from the left. Pictures of all  the teams from Australia (including the the Dance team from Victoria) can also be seen by clicking here.

These students were recipients of scholarships organised by Dr. Damien Kee and supported by Google and the Australian Robotics and Automation Association - many many thanks!

Yaya's World RoboCup Experience in China

Yaya was the first Tasmanian to enter the World Robotics Competitions. She flew from Tasmania to Shanghai, China. This is the view from Yaya’s Uncle’s apartment in her birth city of Shanghai, China, where she stayed before going to the RoboCup competitions in SuZhou; which was about 2 hours drive away from Shanghai.

Travel between Shanghai and SuZhou was by a 200 kph train. The place Yaya stayed in SuZhou  was:

There was a big welcoming sign.

It was a huge University hostel that looked like a hotel. There are nine Universities in Suzhou.

 There were lots of students staying there, here are some waiting for a bus to take them to the RoboCup 2008 Competitions; (Yaya is to the right).

The buses going there were crowded::

 Here is a sign that welcomed competitors at the Competition site:

Here is another welcoming sign:

These signs were BIG! This is a plan of the RoboCup competition site. Yaya’s desk was at the middle yellow square at the top of the sign.

Yaya had to go through metal detectors, just like at an aerodrome. China was careful about terrorist attacks, and Yaya passed 35 uniformed security guards on her way to her RoboCup Rescue desk.

Yaya had the world’s only RoboCup 2008 night-dress!

The organizers let her later change it for a smaller size – but they still had none available that were small enough to fit Yaya properly.

When Yaya finally reached the competition, she had four school desks to spread out her Lego Robot stuff:

 Her four desks were part of a row of desks for other competitors. The team on this side was from Germany. The people on the other side were some of the 17 members of the team from Portugal.

 There were lots of rows of desks for Rescue competitors:

and even more Rescue competitors on the other side of the aisle:

Lots of teams had special t-shirts; these were from Hong Kong:

These were from Guangzhou China. Yaya shared one of the competition runs with this team. The Chinese team had 8 boys, Yaya was alone.

The Rescue robots were all sizes and shapes:

One from Mexico had a driver:

This one had 8 wheels:

Some Rescue Robots were not made from Lego at all:

Yaya also saw lots of other robots; for example, robot insects:

Cuddly robots,

and less cuddly robot snakes:

University robots for handling very rough ground,

and soccer robots:

Lots of soccer robots:

Robot elephants for the Dance competitions:

 

Deep Purple Dance Robots:

Kiss Dance Robots from a High School in Slovakia:

 

Peacock Robots:

and human-like Dance robots

After the RoboCup Competitions, Yaya saw a little of 2,500 year-old Suzhou, which originally had houses like these.

 

Suzhou has 60 rivers, and 3,600 bridges. Yaya travelled around the old city wall in a canal boat,

seeing a 1,000 year old bridge.

Yaya had some traditional meals,

and some not-so-traditional meals.

Then Yaya went back to Shanghai, which is big. This one city has a population of 22 million people, more people than in all of Australia.

In Shanghai the sides of buildings can be used as colourful advertising signs.

It also has a skyscraper that is currently the world’s tallest building.

But the nicest thing of the whole trip was to return home to a big hug from Mummy,