Tasmanian 2008 RoboCup Junior robot Soccer Premier Rescue Dance Theatre Theater

2008 RoboCup Junior in Tasmania

Results of the 2007 and 2008 RoboCup events have recently vanished from the web. Personally I feel this is unfortunate, as they were useful both in teaching and of interest historically. I will be pleased to link to them if they become available again.

Reflections

Regarding teams with whom I was associated with or mentoring, Yaya Lu gained a Google and ARAA scholarship arranged by Dr. Damien Kee that assisted participation in the 2008 World RoboCup Junior Rescue event in SuZhou, China. You can read about some of her experiences here.

Regarding competing in the Tasmanian RoboCup finals, time was tight. Yaya had less than a week between returning from the World RoboCup tournament in SuZhou China and the State RoboCup finals, and was further handicapped by being sick after her return and was unable to compete on the Friday. The organizers were kind enough to let her robot be scrutineered and compete along with Rescue entrants from Northern Tasmania on Saturday morning. This lead to drama as un-noticed damage caused during scrutineering caused her robot not to be able to follow the line at all on her first run! Frantic repairs were made, and since the Rescue rules allowed one run to be dropped, she competed again. Her other runs were good ones, and her robot finished first in the Junior Rescue section of the Tasmanian State tournament, with a second Princes St. team, SebJess very close behind. Both Yaya and SebJess had prepared Premier Rescue Robots, but had not had sufficient time to test them, so neither entered the Premier Rescue event. This was a shame, as SebJess were preparing a very advanced two-computer Premier Rescue robot. Princes Street Primary School teams Yaya Lu (RoboKid) and SebJess were awarded a grant to assist entry in the National RoboCup Junior Rescue event in Perth, Western Australia.

Princes Street Primary School and Margate Primary School also entered teams in the Robot Soccer event, competing against under-18 teams from High Schools. This was the first time Primary School teams had entered Robot Soccer in Tasmania, and in a field of a fifteen(?) or so teams, they caused considerable surprise by both making the finals; Princes St. finishing 4th(?) and Margate 8th - a marvelous effort from both teams. Although I was associated with the preliminary preparation of these teams, I was away at the World RoboCup Championships in SuZhou China for most of their preparation, and all credit should go to Mrs. Juanita Airey of Princes St., and Miss Clare Neilson of Margate Primary for their sterling efforts with their teams.

With Mrs. Airey's leadership and imagination to the fore, Princes St. also achieved a very creditable result in the junior dance section of the State finals.