Shanghai university crowned champion in robotics contest

The VEX Robotics Competition Turning Point is played on a 12'x12' square field. Two alliances – one "red" and one "blue" – composed of two teams each - compete in matches consisting of a 15-second autonomous period, followed by a 1 minute and 45 second driver-controlled period. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

A team from Shanghai Jiao Tong University was crowned the tournament champion and conferred an excellence award at the VEX U competition at the 2018-19 VEX Asia Open held in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, from Feb 21 to 24.

This is the 10th time that Shanghai Jiao Tong University has taken part in the VEX Robotics Competition.

The two robots used by the SJTU1 team from the university were developed by robotics lab Fablab at the university's student innovation center.

According to Pan Chongdan, team leader of SJTU1, the team refined the idea of designing robots, updated the structure and materials used for building robots, and sought advice from previous competition winners during its four-month preparation.

The team will next attend the VEX Robotics World Championship in Louisville, Kentucky,United States, in April.

The VEX Asia Open Championship gathered more than 2,000 participants from 400 student-led teams across Asia this year. During the competition, students are tasked with designing and building a robot to compete against other teams in a game-based engineering challenge. The competition is open to students from primary, secondary school, college and university levels.

The VEX U college and university competition is meant for university students over the age of 18.