College students excel at national robotics competition
HND Digital Technologies students from the South Central Institute of Technology in Bletchley, part of Milton Keynes College Group, took part in the European Robotics League’s Smart City Robotics Competition. Supported by Milton Keynes City Council, the competition took place at Centre:MK between 23rd and 25th September during Milton Keynes Tech Week.
The MK College team competed against undergraduates and postgraduates from universities across the UK and Europe, including Sheffield, Nottingham and Cambridge Universities, as well as other local providers like MK:U Innovation Hub and Cranfield University.
The teams tackled real-world challenges with innovative robotic solutions. The students chose to compete in a variety of robot activities according to the capabilities of their robots or their personal research interests.
An all-female team from MK College competed in a task that required robots to take food orders from customers, collect the orders from the counter and deliver them. The challenge involved navigating the physical environment, interacting with people and delivering coffee orders safely. Working together with a representative from the MK Smart City Experience Centre, the students used the College’s Pepper robot and borrowed Smart City’s Pepper robot and a Temi food delivery robot for the challenge. One Pepper robot took orders by speech and the other by the tablet interface programmed by the students, with the Temi robot delivering the order. In the end, the team fared well, achieving the same score as a local challenger team from the MK:U Innovation Hub.
As part of the event, the team was also able to take a ride on one of the town’s new self-driving minibus routes between Centre:MK to the Milton Keynes train station.
Other students were also able to take part in the competition. Students Anna and Bolu were working with HTML, JavaScript, API calls and Python in the development environment. Anna had previously been involved in a robotics competition and showed interest in the subject, while Bolu had the opportunity to showcase her skills from the College’s Software Development course.
Bolu, a learner studying Digital Technologies at the College, said: “Taking part in the robotics competition at Centre:MK was an incredible experience – the energy, teamwork and creativity on display made every moment worthwhile. Competing alongside so much talent opened my eyes to new possibilities and reaffirmed my passion for technology and the path I’m on.”
John Terry, a Lecturer in Software Development and Networking at MK College, said: “I’m really proud of how well the team worked and responded to the challenge of gaining as many points as possible despite the limited capabilities of some of the robots used. Different interfaces were demonstrated with touchscreen and voice recognition being tested during the trials. Great work all round for our second entry to this Europe-wide competition.”
To learn more about Digital Technologies HND in Software Development at the South Central Institute of Technology, read more about it here.