Some of the youngest competitors at the 8th annual Robot Olympics, which attracted kids from 15 countries to the Gold Coast in December.
Credit: Jeni Bone
The hall is abuzz with whirring and commotion, key-tapping on laptops and voices competing for air with microphone instructions in English, Korean and Japanese. It's the 8th annual International Robot Olympics, held this year at the Southport School, in the heart of Australia's east coast beach playground, the Gold Coast, from 7 to 10 December and attended by school children and academics from around the world.
It's fun and it's frenetic. The competition is ferocious, and it's not solely about robots as toys. "Children are our future and we need to start them early with the logic, the principles and programming associated with robots so that their interest in technology grows with them," explains Julia Chang, spokesperson for the Korean sponsor company, Kaimax. "While they have fun, they are learning, competing and improving their understanding of physics, pulleys, energy and electronics beyond the textbook."
While Australians budget for the electronic toys with an eye toward Christmas stockings, Japan and Korea, where the governments subsidise robotics for educational purposes in schools, take it far more seriously.
"In Korean schools, we recognise children who display a talent for robots from an early age and they are placed in specialist schools with a strong focus on science and maths," says Chang. "That way, we are investing in the future of many fields of industry and technology."
Jun Jo, from local Griffith University's School of Information and Communication technology, says the Australian Federal Government must invest more in robotics and fostering an understanding of the jobs that require them.
"Robotics today is a massive global industry, and one which has increasing job prospects for Australian students. Many experts believe that in a decade the robot industry will become bigger than the car industry. It is disappointing that funding in Australia is significantly smaller in terms of investment compared to other countries."
Over the two days of the Olympics, contestants vie for prizes in two categories - games and creativity. Games include obstacle races, dancing, soccer and basketball, and the creative category involves building a robot from scratch within a set time frame based around an environmental theme.
This is the second time Australia has hosted the International Robot Olympics (IROC), but among the sea of faces in the bleachers, at the tables and demonstrating their entries in the various categories, there are few Australians.
Peter Turner, managing director of the Newcastle, New South Wales technology company Tribotix and lecturer in Computer Engineering at the University of Newcastle, says there just isn't the support, interest or skill pool at our schools and institutions. The absence of local teams is just another symptom of the chronic skills shortage in technical, IT and engineering fields.
"People think robots are a thing of the future, but they are all around us now," says Turner. While the Japanese contingent is working on developing the humanoid team to 'man' an international Moon base scheduled for 2025, the rest of us on Earth are benefiting from robots in every day life: from the manufacturing processes that use robots, the breweries that use them to manipulate their bottles, construction, aircraft reconnaissance, nuclear power plants, surgery, physio and rehabilitation, security, mining, archaeology, space exploration, even search and rescue.
"After Hurricane Katrina, robots were sent in to structurally unsound areas. They detect heat, movement and carbon dioxide to see if anybody's trapped inside spaces it was just too dangerous to send people or dogs. There are snake-like robots that are used after earthquakes that can literally slide in among the rubble and locate people."
A robot archaeologist is poised to enter Egypt's largest pyramid, hoping to reveal thousand year old secrets without disturbing ancient and extremely fragile passageways. Surgery via robotics is being used every day for remote patients, in war and for elite athletes for whom recovery time is crucial.
"It's 50 times quicker, can reduce the number of people in an operating theatre from 13 to 5 and unlike human counterparts, machines are incredibly stable - they don't shake," says Turner.
RoboCup, an international project aimed at universities and industry to promote artificial intelligence and robotics, is another forum where fun is converted into practical applications for the future.
Organisers of RoboCup have chosen a soccer game as their focus of research, with the underlying aim of stimulating innovations that can be applied for socially significant problems and industries. The ultimate objective of the project is to develop a team of fully autonomous humanoid robots that can win against the human world champion team in soccer, with a goal set for 2050.
For his part, Turner is a familiar fixture at the RoboCup challenges, having competed at several in the 'Four Legged League' soccer matches. In fact, he's World Champion in the Quadruped category and is part of the team developing a dog and a bear robot he hopes will be approved for general use in future events.
"Now that the Sony Aibo has ceased production, we thought it would be great to develop a dog - ours is a bulldog - and a bear for the Quadruped section. We have a proposal in with RoboCup to replace the Aibo with our versions and if we're successful, we'll be manufacturing them in Newcastle."
The decision will be handed down in July at the next RoboCup meeting in Atlanta, USA.
Back in Newcastle, Turner works with local school St James Kotara to introduce robots into classrooms. "It works particularly well with what they call 'disengaged kids' - children who are smart, but not interested or who have dropped behind. Robots have managed to re-motivate them, in all areas of their schoolwork. It's something different, it's challenging and it's fun."
The main obstacle to implementing robotics in the curriculum, according to Turner, is that "the curriculum doesn't fit it".
"We only have a few people here from Brisbane and the Gold Coast," observes Turner of the Robot Olympics. "Nobody travelled from other states or cities to be here."
The lack of Australians doesn't detract from the action, though, as spectators witness the fruits of many hours work from kids as young as seven, representing Mexico, Thailand, Singapore, Japan, Korea, China and Australia - in all, more than 600 students from 15 countries.
"The maths, science, IT and computer departments would have to work together and that just doesn't happen. It's generally held as after school classes, in clubs with teachers who volunteer their time. Until funding is made available, it's just not viable. Let's hope ... Australian schools get involved, add robots to their curriculum - get their science, maths and IT departments talking to each other."
For more information, check out the RoboCup and Tribotix websites
Jeni Bone is a freelance journalist based in the Gold Coast, Australia.
