Robots of all sizes and shapes laid siege to the National College of Ireland (NCI) off the north Liffey quays in Dublin as the RoboCup Ireland Challenge came to call.
More than 125 transition year students took part in the competition yesterday, which requires teams to produce working robots designed to dance, play soccer or find and rescue humans trapped in a crumbling building.On offer yesterday was a chance to join the Irish team heading for Germany this June to take part in an international RoboCup championship event.
The RoboCup movement began in Japan in 1992 with a goal to be able to field a humanoid robot team capable of beating the World Cup champions by 2050, explained the Irish representative to the RoboCup Federation, Eoin Geraghty, who is director of student recruitment at the National College of Ireland.
The object is to help encourage student interest in the sciences and engineering through involvement in a fun competition, he said yesterday. The students are also learning about maths, physics and computing. The winning schools yesterday were Our Lady's College, Drogheda, whose team the "Blingin Bots" won the dance competition; Belvedere College Dublin's "Belvo" won the soccer challenge; and the "Space Vikings" from St Aidan's CBS on Collins Avenue took first place in the rescue robot category.
The public and robot enthusiasts can take part in an open day this weekend at the NCI. There will be workshops on robotics, and functioning robots will be on hand including "Skelly" (pictured above) and a Dalek of Dr Who fame. Other visitors include eight life-sized robots from Robot Wars, boxing robots and "Merchanoids" such as Esteron. The event is free and open at the NCI today and tomorrow from 11am-4pm.