Marketing and Other Activities - NUbots/robocup GitHub Wiki

NUbots win the Australian open held at UNSW, 4-0. From currently four Australian teams (Griffiths Univ., Univ. of Newcastle, UNSW, UTS) only the NUbots and rUNSWift were ready to play and entered the competition. The NUbot team is comprised of four postgraduate and two undergraduate students as well as four Nao Aldebaran humanoid robots.
Videos of the Australian Open can be seen on YouTube:
First Half
Second half

NUbots gave a 30 minute robotics demonstration to 12 visitors from JJL Overseas education.

NUbots assists Making Educational Goals Sustainable. Two Sessions were held over the 3 days. Steven, Aaron, Kenny, Jed, David, and Shannon assists as demonstrators for the sessions.

Three students, David Budden, Jed Retvield and Shannon Fenn have been awarded scholarships to work specific projects within the NUbots group.

A 40 minute presentation was given to approximately 30 students from West Wallsend High, as part of a visit to the engineering faculty.

Manuel Olivares is Electronic Engineer from the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Valparaíso, Chile, and Ph.D from the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Spain, in 1995 and 2001 respectively. Since 1990 he is with the academic control group in the Electronics Department, and currently Assistant Professor. Since 2001, Manuel is the internship and industry liaison coordinator. He also has participated in many industrial automation projects. Dr Manuel Olivaries gave a presentation followed by a tour of the Newcastle Robotics Laboratory.

Mahendra Piraveenan has recently submitted his Ph.D thesis titled ‘Topological analysis of complex networks using assortativity’. His research interests include Complex networks, biological networks, graph theory, bio-informatics, distributed systems and multi agent systems. Mahendra Piraveena gave a presentation followed by a tour of the Newcastle Robotics Laboratory.

A/Prof Michael Heimlich is a leading research professor at Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW. He recently mentored a team of high school students in Sydney in the design and competing in a new Robotics Soccer Competition in US, which returned successfully to Australia. A/Prof Michael Heimlich gave a presentation followed by a tour of the Newcastle Robotics Laboratory.

The NUbots gave two presentations detailing the past accomplishments, software system and plenty of video footage from this year and past years competitions. A live demonstration of highly advanced Aldebaran NAO robots on a full sized soccer field was presented to the audience. These robots were able to score at least 3 times during each of the demonstrations. AIBOs were also presented during these presentations. AIBOs danced to many songs, which also prompted many questions on how they work, etc. There were also photo opportunities with the robots, and a chance for people to have a general discussion with the team. Over all there was over 100 people that attended the presentations. With the audience throughly enjoyed the presentation.

Kenny Hong (an Nubots associated member), presents at The University Of Newcastle open day in Ourimbah with AIBOs.

Kenny Hong (an Nubots associated member), visits Wauchope to present AIBOs at information night.

A half page article is published about NUbots participation in Robocup 2010 in the Faculty’s Newsletter (page 6).

Live demonstrations of NAO robots were given at the PSB booth in the Suntec venue by deputy leader Aaron Wong, during the finals at Robocup 2010. These attracted attention, giving hands on experience and insights into robotics to interested people of all ages.

UONS SCS Sub-Committee led a group of students to Suntec City Singapore to support our UONA NuBots team competing in the Robocup 2010 competition. “The overall experience helped us gain new insights into robotics…. It has been a rewarding and enriching experience to visit the RoboCup Competition.”, Raymond Tham [Lecturer (IT), UoNS].

NuBots Representatives visit The University of Newcastle [Singapore]. The team gave a general presentation which included humanoid robot (NAO) and explained the mechanics of programming the robot. This was followed by a question and answer session.

A live broadcast interview was conducted with Nubots’ deputy team leader Aaron Wong, on the challenges of Robocup, and the road to Singapore.

A Radio Interview was conducted over the phone with deputy leader Aaron Wong detailing the events leading up to Singapore.

Following a phone interview with the deputy leader Aaron Wong, an article about the NUbots from the University of Newcastle was published on the iPrime website.
Article

An Interview with the NUbots featured on the local news:
Article
Video

A media release was sent out in regards to the departure of team to Singapore to compete in the World Robot Soccer Championships. ‘NUbots to compete at RoboCup2010 in Singapore’.

In assistance to the Faculty’s marketing department, the NAOs were used for a photoshoot which will feature in up-comming media releases, websites, and informational pamphlets for the university.

Students from Kotara Public School visited the laboratory, which included a short presentation, videos and demonstration of NAO robots in soccer playing.

Presentations on projects related to Robotics and Robocup were presented. These included the Vision system, multiple model unscented kalman filters, particle filters, and robot detection.

Representatives from NUbots visits UNSW for Final Practice Soccer Match before the competition.

Tamworth Careers market was a regional event which invited school leavers, spanning the New England district. Over 50 stalls were at the tamworth entertainment centre promoting their trade, or career paths. The NUbots assisted The University of Newcastle, Engineering facultys marketing department, through a display of interactive robotics, and robot demonstrations through out the day. These robots consisted of the Sony AIBOs and the Aldebaran NAOs. The display attracted plenty of attention, which consequently resulted in a lengthy radio interview with the teams deputy leader.

Deputy Team Leader Aaron Wong presents at Try-a-Trade show in Singleton, with NAO and AIBO robot demonstrations, promoting the Faculty of Engineering, The University of Newcastle and Path of a Professional through University as a trade.

Associated NUbots student project member, Kenny Hong presents AIBOs in a promotion of School of Engineering and Computer Science at Barker College in North Sydney

Representatives of rUNSWift (UNSW) attended an unofficial practice game with NUbots at Newcastle University. This aim was to encourage and enable new students to see the results of advanced research into the area of robotics and a display of state of the art technology.

A presentation was given at The Newcastle Show During the presentation about about the AIBOs and NAO robots. The Dancing AIBOs were also featured. During the show we sent the team members and robots down to the audience to have an up-close encounter, which the children thoroughly enjoyed.
After the presentation we went inside to the Newcastle University static stall, ran by Adam Elhindi, where a NAO robot chased a ball in front of the stall. That section was a great success, attracting lots of bystanders and people asking plenty of interesting questions. We were able to personally talk to people and answer questions, while promoting research and the electrical engineering school.
The TV that was hired was moved from the outdoor stage. A Laptop was installed on the TV at the static stall which played videos of our practice games, which is attracting plenty of attention.

• Link: The NAB Newcastle Regional Show – 2010 Program

Associated NUbots student project member, Kenny Hong, and marketing member presents Sony AIBO to students at Gordan Primary School.

NUbots assist Making Educational Goals Sustainable (MEG’s) with hardware (SONY AIBO) for demonstration and presentation (given by Peter Turner). This year there are two MEG’s days schedule for Semester 1, these are this Friday (5/3, Gorokan High) and the following Friday (12/3 Kurri High).

Representatives of NUbots (The University of Newcastle) attended an unofficial practice game at UNSW during their open day. Opponents were rUNSWift. This aim was to encourage and enable new students to see the results of advanced research into the area of robotics and a display of state of the art technology.

NUbots team members presented a casual demonstration of technology in an semi-outdoor environment with an Aldebaran NAO. This was situated on the stage outside the Bar on the Hill at The University of Newcastle and during the lunch session after the Vice Chancellor’s end of year speech. There were informal discussions of the robots, processes and techniques used on the robot. This presentation has drawn further interest and awareness into advanced research gone into robotics at this university.

This Summer school ran for five days, and were for girls who have shown tallent in the fields of Maths and Sicence. The purpose of this school was to encourage these Year 9 girls from all over the state to enter in a mainly male-dominated field, such as engineering. The NUbots have supported this ideal, by volunteering their time by assisting with the six robotics session, which runs on the first 3 days of this school. During these sessions, the girls were introduced to the LEGO Mindstorm NXT system, where they were allocated a bit over an 1 hour to produce a dance, or a line follower software. Also NUbot team members demonstrated the highly advanced Sony AIBOs and Aldebaran NAOs, sparking more interest and curiosity in this field.

• Volunteers appeared in a news report, which can be found at:
  Article
  Video
  

The NUbots team members have been exteneded during the summer break to include three new undergraduate students. Each of these students are recipients of a either a School of Engineering funded or a NUbot funded scholarship. These students who will be working on exciting but different aspects of the NUbot system. Some of these projects include an updated vision system, localisation system and locomotion system. These opportunities allow any student to expand their knowledge, and allow them to gain practical experiance to applications relevent to their current field of study. It will also present them with an opportunity to intereact with a successful team into a real team based project. Each summer scholarship student will be working in parallel with a current team member who is an expert in their field of the NUbot system.