Students wage robot wars ahead of robotics week

The fourth edition of Robot Wars was held earlier this month at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, Valletta. Six teams of students took part in the event, in which they designed and built robots of the same size to wage war against each other. The robots were named Blitz, Jack, Killer Queen, Kink, Mega­hurtz and Pacman.

After months of hard work and dedication and nearly three hours during which the robots bashed their enemies, cheered on by 300 student spectators, tension mounted while the panel of judges deliberated who the winners of the contest would be.

Andrew Fiorini, Andre Micallef and Stephane Rolè placed first with Blitz. Next came Pacman, followed by Jack. Despite its war-like nature the event was characterised by participants’ instant readiness to help their competitors.

Organised by the IEEE Malta Student Branch and sponsored by Malta Council for Science and Technology, the event aims to encourage students of engineering, sciences and ICT to put theories into practice and to raise professional awareness.

The first European Robotics Week will be held between tomorrow and next Sunday at the Faculty of Engineering during which there will be a series of laboratory tours, public talks, interactive workshops, and much more for science enthusiasts and school-children. For further information visit, www.um.edu.mt/eng/sce/notices/eurobotics_week.