Holding of the First Science and Technology Cultural Festival of the School of Mechanical Engineering and Electronic Information and the Finals of the 19th Robotics Competition

CUG News (Reported by Wang Yiyan and Du Yu; Photo by Wang Junfang) On April 2, the First Science and Technology Cultural Festival and the Finals of the 19th Robotics Competition of the School of Mechanical Engineering and Electronic Information were held at the Student Activity Center of Nanwangshan Campus. Vice President Liu Jie, heads of the School of Mechanical Engineering and Electronic Information, the Undergraduate School, the Institute of Science and Technology Development and the Graduate School, teacher and student representatives, and 68 participating teams attended the opening ceremony.

Liu Jie delivered a speech and declared the opening. He said that the School of Mechanical Engineering and Electronic Information, based on its professional advantages, has formed a distinctive new brand of “Science and Technology Cultural Festival” consisting of a series of activities such as robotics competition, which has radiated and driven students from multiple schools to participate in “innovation and entrepreneurship” practices, effectively expanded new ways of innovation and entrepreneurship education and provided new and powerful support for the overall improvement of talent training quality. He called on students to set lofty goals, develop excellent skills, climb to the peak of scientific research, and strive to be the pillar of rejuvenation and the pioneers of building China into a great power.

Focusing on the theme of “Learning from the 20th CPC National Congress and creating a better future through science and technology”, the finals of this robotics competition has set up seven events, including bipedal walking race, two-wheel racing, quadrotor flying, hexapod walking race, smart car, IOT innovative design, and engineering creativity. The participating teams would carry out creativity, design, programming and production of robots according to different competition events, and show their innovative thinking, sense of cooperation and practical ability comprehensively through works display and field confrontation. On site, the teams were calm and composed, striving to win the competition with the best algorithm, the best posture and the strongest positioning.

Zhang Zhuanhong, a student who participated in the hexapod walking race, said, “With the mutual cooperation and division of labor in our team, we have made our own small robot, and each of us has a full sense of achievement. The experience of this competition has greatly honed our hands-on practical skills and teamwork awareness.” Xiao Yibin, the leader of the “Biomimetic Scorpion” robot design team in the innovative design event, said, “Participating in this robotics competition not only taught me a lot of programming knowledge, but also cultivated my courage to try and persevere in the process of robot design and repeated experiments, and made me feel the charm of technology.”

It is reported that the robotics competition held this time is a part of the science and technology month activities of CUG, and is also a characteristic competition event integrating fun and knowledge in the Science and Technology Cultural Festival of the School of Mechanical Engineering and Electronic Information, which enhances the students’ awareness of science and technology innovation and cultivates their practical hands-on ability. Since 2004, the Robotics Competition has been successfully held for 19 times, providing a large number of excellent teams for various high-level scientific and technological innovation events, such as the RoboWork. This year, the School of Mechanical Engineering and Electronic Information launched a new brand of “Science and Technology Cultural Festival” activities for the first time, which organically integrated and upgraded the science and technology activities of the school on the basis of the existing work, with a view to enhancing the systemic nature and influence of science and technology education.

(Edited by Sun Yanqin; Reviewed by Chen Huawen)