YOGYAKARTA – UGM robot team has won a gold medal in the Trinity Fire Fighting Contest, held from 6-7 April in Hartford City, Connecticut, in the U.S. Following that, the team also won two gold medals and one silver in RoboGames 2013 Olympics of Robots, 19-21 April, in San Mateo, California. Malik Khidir, member of the team, said the robot was named Hafidz after the member of the team who was unable to go to the competition in the U.S.
Malik said that as many as 49 members were involved in the preparation of the competition to represent Indonesia in the U.S. But due to the limited budget, only three were able to go, including himself, Agys Badruzzaman (Engineering Faculty), and Bachtiar C Permana (Vocational School). It needed one year to prepare a very neat robot. “Three trials have proved the robot’s ability to extinguish fire and back to home in perfect manner,” Malik said.
Malik said it was not easy to make the robot to win. They had to spend two years to work it out. Malik and friends share the burden of designing the robot. They also found difficulties in finding spareparts which can only be purchased in the U.S, China and the UK. “One robot costs Rp30 million while the robot line follower only costs Rp2 million as the sparepart is sold locally.
In the Trinity Fire Fighting Robot Contest, their robot defeated robots from the U.S., China, Israel, Romania, and Turkey. Hafidz was able to surpass other robots speedily on a 60-m track. “Placed in any positions, Hafidz robot can extinguish fire and there was no error being made,” he said.
In the Robogames, the UGM robot team participated in five categories. Two golds were won in the category of Fire Fighting Robot and Natcar Robot and silver for category of Balancer Robot. According to Agys, the competition was the largest ever robot competition and it was awarded The Guinness World Records. Children and robot communities also joined the competition. “It was followed by participants from 16 countries in 59 events, 227 teams, 703 robots and 841 engineers,” he concluded.