Four students—Jo, Fang, Pong and Pon—from four universities put their brains together for the Robot Design Contest 2008 (RDC), creating two automated robot waste collectors. The winning quartet is now gearing up for the International Design Contest RoboCon 2008, to be held in Brazil in July.

BK: Why did you decide to take part in the contest?

Jo: We are all sophomore students so we weren’t doing internships during the holidays. But, we wanted to make the most out of our summer break and the contest was a great opportunity for us to try and put what we learnt into practice.

BK: What’s the idea behind your robots?

Pon: To promote awareness of global warming. The task was to create a trash-sorting robot, so we started brainstorming on that. It took us about two days to complete the design.

Pong: It was a process of trial and error. We had to make many changes before we came up with a successful design.

BK: What was the most difficult part in making the robots?

Jo: At first, we tried to follow what we had learnt in engineering classes. But, in the end we found that those theories were neither practical nor effective!

Fang: Exactly! When we were designing the robots, we discovered that theory isn’t always applicable in real life.

Pon: The budget was also limited to B600. Each team had to build their robots from a standard set of equipment.

BK: What was it like on competition day?

Jo: It was exciting and nerve-wrecking at the same time because everyone there had their eyes fixed on us.

BK: What did you learn from the contest?

Fang: Many things. Most of all, I got to meet new friends and gain more experience. We come from different places, but we all worked very well together.

Pon: We realize the value of things that we used to take for granted, and also that we can make not one, but two robots out of them!

BK: How are you preparing for the upcoming Robocon?

CB: We’re proud to represent Thailand. But we are also excited because we will all be put into separate teams with representatives from seven different countries. Each of them comes from a specialized robot-design university.

BK: Do you think one day your robots can save the world?

Fang: Our robots are produced under a limited time and limited budget. To make them more effective, we need more time and more money but I think it might be possible. If we can use robots to collect garbage, it would be a lot faster and more efficient.