Skip to main content

Competitions and Demonstrations

RobotsEAST

Now in its 17th year, RobotsEAST provides high school students in the Atlantic Provinces with experience in engineering, science, and technology through building remote-controlled robots. This multi-disciplinary competition exploits and advances their knowledge and capability in Mathematics, Physics, Tech. Ed., Journalism, and English. The culmination of the competition is a round-robin tournament that involves four robots at a time (each weighing up to 30 kg) fighting for mastery of the playing field to determine the overall winner.

To make the competition technically accessible, the core power and control systems of the robots are constructed from a ready-to-use kit of parts supplied by RobotsEAST. The kit contains motors, batteries and the control system. The rest of the robot - what makes it unique - is designed by students and constructed from whatever materials they choose. In 2012 the competition will be held on the 4th and 5th of May in the Dalplex at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.


Field Robot Event (FRE 2012)

The vision of Field Robot is to present the future of precision agriculture and horticulture via an annual and international open-air field robot contest. It is the only open-air agricultural field robot contest in the world, where students and professionals compete in a hands-on learning agricultural field domain. The Field Robot Event shows a vision of the future of modern precision agriculture. Right now, a small revolution is taking place. A new breed of robots will soon be able to carry out a variety of tasks in row crops, such as weeding, spraying and disease monitoring. The contest allows unlimited creativity: no restrictions apply to the robot design and construction. The challenge for the competitors is to improve off-road robot building skills, and contribute to the creation of a knowledge base for intelligent navigation, sensing and acting of autonomous and off-road vehicles. Field Robot 2012 is organized by the Fontys University of Applied Sciences and Wageningen University an will take place June 28th - 30th in Venlo within the environment of the Floriade.

Student Autonomous Underwater Challenge Europe (SAUC-E)

Now in its 7th year, SAUC-E challenges the next generation of engineers to design and build an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) capable of performing realistic missions. The event is designed to encourage students to think about underwater technology and related applications while fostering innovation and technology. It also aims at getting young engineers and scientists to consider careers in the field.

Participating teams must consist of 75% student members and have a faculty advisor. The 2012 competition is being organised by NURC, a NATO Research Centre located in La Spezia, Italy. It will be held at the NURC waterfront, a sheltered harbour with salt water and limited visibility, adding to the goal to have AUVs perform in a realistic environment. The event takes place 6th - 13th July.


European Land Robot Trial (ELROB)

ELROB is a trial intended to demonstrate and compare the capabilities of unmanned systems in realistic scenarios and terrains. Therefore, it is as close as possible to the typical deployment scenario for today. ELROB is a showcase for cutting edge robotics technology, applied to real world applications, that can shape the direction of research for the short and medium term. The philosophy of the trial:
  • Focus on short-term realisable robot systems
  • Explicitly designed to assess current technology to solve immediate real world problems
  • To bring together users, researchers and industry to build an autonomous land systems community

ELROB comes in two flavours, Military and Civillian, each being held in alternating years. In 2012 it's the military version, M-ELROB. The event will take place on 24th - 28th September in Thun, Switzerland.


Unmanned Systems Canada Student UAV Competition

The purpose of the competition is to promote and develop Canadian interest, expertise and experience in unmanned systems technologies at the university and college levels. The competition takes place in two phases with a Phase I design report from each team due 13th January 2012 and Phase II, operational demonstration, in May 2012. Teams will be graded on the quality and completeness of their design report and the results of the demonstrations – there will be separate prizes for each phase. This year the operational component will take place 4th - 6th May in Southport, Manitoba.

The basic mission for the students will be to operate in support of forest fire fighting personnel. UAVs will be asked to locate points of interest within a designated area surrounding a forest fire in the remote Canadian wilderness.


International Micro Air Vehicle Flight Competition (IMAV)

Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) are the smallest man-made flying machines. They are flying robots and have the weight and size of small birds. Innovation in navigation, control and processing technology has made this possible. However, there are still numerous scientific challenges to be solved. The development of miniaturized structures, propulsion and navigation systems, aerodynamics, flight controllers, actuators and sensors are just a few of the current research topics in the field of MAVs.

As before IMAV 2012 includes an indoor and outdoor flight competition of MAVs and will be held in Braunschweig, Germany from 3rd to 6th July. The conference shall serve as a platform to exchange information on the state-of-the-art of MAVs. Thus, the German Institute of Navigation cordially invites everyone from Science, Industry, Military, Government Agencies, Academia, and Users to participate.