2007 National Robotics Innovation Competition – Winners announced

In a combined effort The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE-A) and ABB Australia encouraged university students to team up with employers to design and develop an application of a robot in a work cell or process in an industrial application. All entries were evaluated on savings generated, innovation, safety, likelihood of success and presentation skills.

Three group finalists were invited to present their proposals to a Board of Directors made up of a group of industry professionals who generously donated their time for the day.

Will Midgley and Gabrin Raveendran from the University of Melbourne	First to present were Will Midgley and Gabrin Raveendran from the University of Melbourne with their proposal for the robot installation of an instrumentation panel for Ford. The group impressed the judges with their slick animations and by being well-prepared and exceptionally knowledgeable in the work they had
Winner Jarred Spriggs and Aaron Dixon from Deakin University	completed, setting the standard for the groups to follow. Jarred Spriggs and Aaron Dixon were up next, representing the first of two Deakin University finalist groups. They put forward their proposal for an automated vehicle glazing application for Ford and
Rob Slavin, Lee Underwood, Todd Matthews, Scott Wade and Glenn Madden from Deakin University	managed to again make an impact on the judges through their technical knowledge and ability to get through a barrage of questioning. Rounding out the afternoon, the second group from Deakin University made up of Lee Underwood, Glenn Madden, Todd Matthews, Scott Wade and Rob Slavin
presented their automated process for combining metal parts and polypropylene for plastics manufacturer RMAX. Using visual aids to assist their in-depth explanations, they too managed to stamp a solid impression on the competition leaving the judges with a tough decision to make.

At the completion of the presentations the judges came together to discuss the individual and group winners. The judges’ comments centered around the overall excellence of the proposals and the amount of work put in by the students and there was great difficulty in choosing only one winner. After lengthy discussions involving technical knowledge, presentation skills, ability to answer questions and a range of other key elements, the judges came to the decision that the second group proposal of the automated vehicle glazing application was the winning group with Jarred Spriggs coming out just on top as the individual winner.

Jarred wins three months paid work experience with ABB Australia in the Robotics division with all finalists receiving vouchers to attend a robot training course as well as trophies to be presented at a later date.

Congratulations to all competition entrants – the standard of projects and the success achieved in this inaugural year of the competition will hopefully continue for many years to come.

Paul Gekas, Ireen Taufika, David Ford, Robert Judd, Doug Monaghan, Alan Stapelberg and Roger Lim	Thanks again to Robert Judd, David Ford, Roger Lim, Doug Monaghan and Paul Gekas for giving up their time to judge on the day, and to all those who contributed to the success of this year’s competition including Maura Fay, and all the industry partners and project supervisors, with special thanks to Ford for providing a number of projects for students and Saeid Nahavandi from

Deakin University who provided unprecedented support to the initiative.

Preparations are currently underway for next year’s competition and interested employers, students and universities should stay posted to the SAE-A (www.sae-a.com.au) and ABB Australia (www.abbaustralia.com.au) websites for more details. More immediate information is available by emailing robots@au.abb.com or by calling the ABB Helpline on 1800 ABB HELP (1800 222 4357).