Last year Singapore’s Defense Science and Technology Agency offered up 1 million sing dollars to anyone who can build a robot that can operate autonomously in urban conditions. Singapore has always been vigilant and it realizes that even a small country can be a prime target for terrorism or even an invasion from another country. Twenty-eight teams comprising more than 170 individuals from five countries registered and now only 6 teams are left.
The finals will take place tomorrow, event details are as follows: (free admission and open to everyone)
Date: Sunday 21 September 2008
Venue: Republic Polytechnic
Time: 9:30 am
The robots will have to do several tasks like navigating through a building , going on an elevator, climbing up a flight of stairs, tagging or take out a few targets like dustbin and soldiers and leaving the building all without human intervention.
The Teams:
Team Azrobowar- build by 5 amateurs in their own time with their own money. This is one of the more interesting teams to watch since they funded themselves they only had about 8,000 dollars as their budget (other teams usually spent 200-300k on their robots). Sharp Shooter, their robot, weighs about 118kg and most parts were bough second-hand; the arm was scavenged from a dustbin about 10 yrs ago by a team member, and its design incorporates ordinary webcams, a game controller and a whelchair motor.
