Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/869387
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 3 SEPTEMBER 2017 40 Information Technology Melvin Farrugia, MITA Social Media, PR and Communications Executive As a group of students, you have participat- ed in the Global Challenge Robot Olympics. Is this the first challenge that has ever been organised or was it just the first time that Maltese students participated in it? This was the first time that the company organised the Robot Olympics. Therefore, it was the first challenge for all the countries in the world. What was this competition about? Over a period of several months, the team had to build a robot. Once the robot was built, the team travelled to the United States of America where the competition was be- ing organised and each team was assigned with the fixtures and the teams with whom it would be competing. In each round of the competition, the teams were not competing on their own against individual opponents. Instead, the teams joined alliances which would then fight against other alliances. Initially, Malta's alliance included the teams from the United States and from India. Howev- er, in each round the alliances were made from different teams. The amount of points gained through the alliances would then be awarded to the respective teams within the alliance. The competition consisted in having the robot to pick up the balls and sort them ac- cording to the two possible colours, that were blue and orange. The robot had to be built in such a way that it recognises the col- our of the balls and sorts them accordingly. Once the balls had been sorted according to their colour, they needed to be taken to a designated place. Each ball represented particles of water, the orange being bad par- ticles while the blue particles were the good ones. The orange particles scored four points, but needed to be tak- en to the laboratory on the bridge. The blue particles scored one point, when placed in the water reservoir. So, as an alliance you had the same objec- tive? Yes, the objective as an alliance was to get the largest amount of points against the other alliances. It was also important to gather as much points as possible during the last part of each round when an imaginary flood oc- curred and the robot had to be capable to sur- vive through it. The two possible ways were by either travelling upon a bridge towards an imaginary laboratory or climb up a pole in the field. This meant that the robot had to physi- cally climb up the pole using an arm with which it grabs the pole and climbs up. Going to the bridge gave five points, whereas climb- ing the pole gave the participants fifteen points. The Maltese team attempted to climb up the pole. How did you build the robot? In the beginning of the preparation period we were sent a kit manufactured by REV Robotics. It consisted of various parts such as shafts, collars, screws and other parts which needed to be assembled to form the robot from scratch. Other parts within the robot were more complex, such as the col- our sensor that was used to distinguish the colour of the balls. There was also a control hub, through which we could control the robot and several mo- tors to actuate the movements of the robot. The control hub was like the brain of the robot, thus making it the part through which we could program the robot. Through Wi-Fi connectivity, we could connect to the device and access it through a particular address on the brows- er. Through this address, we could then edit the programme controlling the robot. It was also possible to control the robot through a tablet which we received together with the kit. Did you actually programme the robot your- selves? Is this something that you are learn- ing at MCAST and at MITA during your work- ing experience? Yes, we programmed the robot. However, in this case we programmed the robot using a different from what we are learning. There were two methods of programming from which we could choose. We could either choose to use Blockly, which is a form of visual scripting, where you attach blocks to each other and create an in- terface with the robot. Otherwise, you could use Java. In our case, we chose Blockly be- cause we entered a little late for the competi- tion and so needed to gear up quickly. An encouraging participation in the Andrea Abela is an MCAST student who is gaining work experience at MITA c s Three MCAST students who are studying software development and multimedia software development, have built a robot and competed in the Global Challenge Robot Olympics in Washington. One of the students is Andrea Abela who is a current student worker at MITA. We talked to him about his experience and how working with the Agency is helping him achieve his goals.