A Complementary Workshop for JUPAS Applicants - mBot Go!

About 40 Form 6 students joined a full-day workshop mBot Go! organized by Department of Electronic Engineering on 6 July 2017, on which they were given a challenge to build, programme and remote control a mBot to compete in a car race against each other. To all of them it was a first-time experience to have a taste of robotic controls involving line tracking and object avoidance. The workshop was a good opportunity for undergraduates-to-be to have some hands-on experience of both hardware and software applications prior to their entry to university.  

At 9:30am participants gathered at EE Innovation Centre and listened to Prof K W Leung and Dr. Derek Pao for a general briefing. Then they moved into one of the many EE laboratories, which had been set up for the activity. They began with composing a mBot, all components of which were inside a box set. Programming their cars to adjust the motion and detection of obstacles was the final step.

After many trials and errors and refinements, each of them placed their own mBot onto the race track to decide who would be qualified to compete further in a knockout tournament. Some could become losers just because of a minor bug in their coding.  At the end the awards went to three participants whose cars were able to perform as required and at the best time.