YOGYAKARTA – Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), again, won the championship in the Regional III Indonesian Robot Contest (KRI) and the Indonesian Intelligent Robot Contest (KRCI) held at the Sport Hall of Yogyakarta State University on Saturday (28/5). Of the four robots sent by UGM, all of them managed to become winners. Garuda robot was winner for the Indonesian Robot Contest (KRI), while Warfire became winner in the Indonesian Intelligent Wheeled Robot Contest (KRCI). Another robot, Yacaranda 04 was victorious in the Indonesian Intelligent Legged Robot Contest, while the Gamma-shot was runner-up in the Battle KRCI after being defeated by R2C-R7 from Satya Wacana Christian University Salatiga.
Garuda succeeded to be the winner after defeating Maestro Evo (UNY) in the final. The process to gain the victory was so tensed. Moreover, UGM and UNY teams brought the most supporters among 54 participants coming from 6 State Universities and 17 private universities in Yogyakarta and Central Java. Supporters of UGM were wearing a red shirt on the south side stands. Meanwhile, supporters UNY wearing light blue shirt were in the northern tribune. Practically, both supporters were facing each other.
However, after 2 minutes, Maestro Evo was declared by the Jury as unable to continue the match. On the other hand, Garuda still continued its duty to put Joss stickpot on the top of the pole of common zone. UGM supporters seemed happy and smiled complacently while applauding Garuda. Therefore, Garuda certainly goes forward to the national level competition held at Universitas Gadjah Mada from 11-12 June.
Garuda Robot Team Leader who is a Mechanical Engineering student, Ridwan Widoyoko (21), could not hide his joy after Garuda won the game in the final. "Obviously, I am proud as an UGM student," he said happily.
Garuda team preparations in the face of this competition were quite long. At least they spent a year to be ready from team building, team selection process, brainstorming, to unloading old and new spare parts of their homemade robots. To do all those things, Ridwan together with his friends had to reduce their sleeping time. Not infrequently, they were forced to sleep in the laboratory. "Anyway, we often did not get a sleep and did not attend courses," he recalled.
To create Garuda, Ridwan and his friends had to spend about 80 million rupiah. However, the amount of funds was not in vain. Being a champion is clearly a pride for them.
Wanting to Represent Indonesia
As for the choice of Garuda as the name of their robot, Ridwan said that it has its own philosophy. The name is expected to provide encouragement to represent Indonesia in the international arena. "When I saw the badminton and football games, we are so motivated. We really want to represent Indonesia through a name that represents Indonesia, Garuda," the student who is still at 6th semester said.
UGM’s success in the championship in the robot contest this time certainly makes Director of Student Affairs, Drs. Haryanto, M.Sc., happy and proud, let alone the national level competition will be held at UGM on 11-12 June 2011. Surely it progressively increases motivation of UGM team to achieve similar achievements at the national level. "We are targeting at least 2 robots from UGM team can represent Indonesia in the international arena," he concluded.