News

A team from Waseda won the 2015 NHK Student Robot Contest held on June 7. This is the first victory for Waseda since the annual contest began in 1991. 200 teams were selected to participate in this year’s contest, where they battled for the chance to participate in the international Asia-Pacific Robot Contest (ABU Robocon).

The winning ROBOSTEP team

At the NHK Student Robot Contest, students from universities and vocational schools across the country demonstrate their technical prowess and ideas through their robots. This year, teams competed in badminton doubles where each team pits two robots against their opponent and the first team to score five points is victorious.

The Waseda circle “ROBOSTEP” (advised by Professor Shigeki Sugano, Dean of the Faculty of Science and Engineering) won this year’s competition and will represent Japan at the ABU Robocon in Indonesia in August.

ROBOSTEP members commented on their experience:

• “This was the first time for us so we had very little experience and technical knowledge compared to veteran competitors from other universities. However, through trial-and-error we were able to pull through.”
• “We didn’t have a practice space comparable to that used for the robot contest. There were many things that caught us by surprise on the day of the contest. However, we were certain we had practiced more than any other team and this made us confident in our ability to compete.”
• “During the first round we had a lot of trouble completing our serves and it seemed like we wouldn’t be able to win. However, we overcame this obstacle with guts and precise control technology.”

We wish ROBOSTEP the best as they represent Waseda on the world stage at the upcoming ABU Robocon!

The ROBOSTEP team on campus with their victory banner