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| ▲ Citizens gathered for the Korea Intelligent Robot Contest and Pohang Family Science Festival on Nov. 5~7. Families enjoyed application of science and could observe the state-of-the-art robot technologies. | ||
The 12th Korea Intelligent Robot Contest (KIRC) was held on Nov. 5 ~ 7 in the gymnasium of the Pohang Sports Complex in conjunction with the 7th Pohang Family Science Festival (PFSF). The event, conducted by the Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics (APCTP) and the Pohang Institute of Intelligent Robotics (PIRO) and sponsored by POSTECH, Pohang City, and Gyeongsangbuk-do, included robot competitions, robot expositions, and sports science expositions.
Three sub-competitions were held for the KIRC competition. As a main stage event, an intelligent robot competition granted different awards to 32 entries after evaluating intelligence, control, mechanism, sensor ability, and degree of completion. On sub stages, a robot cleaning contest selected three winners based on cleanable area and cleaning quality in a limited time period. Furthermore, a sports competition of robots similar to the Olympic Games was held as an exhibition match.
A variety of robots were demonstrated to citizens, offering them a good chance to understand current robot technologies and application possibilities from experts. The institute opened the public practice of designing robots with its ‘Mini Robo Life Museum’ offering chances to meet PIRO’s latest robots, including WINDRO (window washing robot), PHOPE (guide robot), and PIRO (robot actor). For people not familiar with robots, the Robot Tour Bus, a moving hands-on exhibition, showed dances and songs of different robots.
At PFSF, families could enjoy learning everyday science by playing games. Approaching sports through sports science, children could realize scientific principles. Bernoulli basketball (hitting a ball in the air), skateboarding, mini golf, air gun shooting and flying bicycles were prepared for children’s experiences.
From its beginning in 1999, KIRC has been one of the major robot contests in Korea. More than 500 winners of previous competitions have become leading engineers of robot companies and research institutes. The director of PIRO, Professor Kim Dai-jin of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering explained, “For last 12 years, more than 2,500 participants applied for the contest, and its size is getting bigger with the addition of the Robot Cleaning Contest (2005), and the Robot Olympic Games (2010).”
Prof. Kim explained, “Different from other contests, KIRC is composed of overall evaluation of robots, not simple competing games. Thus, it can lead applicants to look for creative ideas, not only good operations.” With a closing comment, he noted, “In this year’s contest, designs focusing on appearance and interactions with people were noticeable. The fusion of Robot Technology (RT) and Information Technology (IT) is expected by using smartphones in controlling robots.”
