The World of Robots

More than 500 school students from around the state, including a record number of girls, have showcased their computer and robotic expertise at UNSW.

The Robocup Junior NSW Open competition, the school-age counterpart of the university-level Robocup Senior, saw primary and secondary school students taking part in robot dance, soccer and search and rescue.

The ultimate goal of Robocup is to eventually build humanoid robots to take on the World Cup Soccer winners in the year 2050.

The students and their robots had already competed in school and regional-level events. The winners will now go on to compete in the Australian Open on the Gold Coast in September and have the opportunity to travel to China next year for the World Cup.

The Australian Dance team is the current World Champion.

"UNSW was very happy to see so many students putting an incredible amount of work into their robots in all the different leagues," says Brad Hall, development manager at UNSW's School of Computer Science and Engineering.

"We were amazed that a year 8 student not only entered the Rescue League and won it, but also that she came fourth in the Premier Rescue category.

"We were also pleased with the number of female participants and encourage them all to consider a future in computing."

The winners of all six categories in the competition will be published at the Robocup Junior website.