1. Objective

With a view to promoting students’ interest in different electronic product designs (including microcontrollers, mobile applications and wireless communication) and to provide a platform for students to exercise their programming and hardware design skills through teamwork, the Department of Electronic and Information Engineering (EIE) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) will organize “EIE Robotic Challenge 2016” jointly with Propagation Systems Limited (PSL) and EGG Technologies Ltd (EGG). EIE and other university students who participate in this Challenge may win a HK$2,000 prize by creating a robotic car and a mobile application that can remotely control the car to run as fast as possible and to finish some specified tasks in a race. There are two kinds of tasks: one is to move a table tennis ball to a specified location; the other is to shoot a target by using an infra-red transceiver.

Participants of the contest are required to design a robotic car and a mobile application to remotely control the robotic car through wireless communication. PSL and EGG will provide the 64-bit microcontroller and wireless communication module for the robotic car respectively at a special discounted price of HK$500 in total. They will also provide workshops for participants to show how to develop robotic cars using their components (they will be held in the middle of May, to be confirmed). Students can use the 64-bit microcontroller and wireless communication module provided by PSL and EGG or obtain them on their own. All participants can get a refund for all components (including the microcontroller and wireless communication module) to build a robotic car if they achieve the entry standard in the qualifying race (to be described later). In the final race, the winner will be the fastest one to finish all specified tasks in the race.

2. Conditions and Schedule of the Contest

There are three phases in this Challenge:

Phase I: Registration and Proposal Submission (Registration Deadline: 13 May 2016; Proposal Submission Deadline: 6 June 2016):

• Students who are interested in joining the Challenge should register via Learn@PolyU (https://learn.polyu.edu.hk/) on or before 13 May 2016.
• Participants attend workshops for the provided microcontroller and wireless communication module (middle-May, to be confirmed).
• Participants submit a proposal to describe the design of their robotic cars and mobile applications. Moreover, the proposal should report the estimated costs of their robot cars (including the microcontroller and wireless communication module) and the time schedule to implement their cars. Note that the estimated costs for the microcontroller, wireless communication module and other expenses should not exceed HK$1,000 in total.
• A proposal should use 12-point fonts and single-line spacing, and should be within eight A4 pages with everything included. The deadline is 6 June 2016.

Phase II Qualifying Race (Date: 19 August 2016):

• Participants spend their own money to build robot cars and mobile applications first and they will get a refund if they achieve the entry standard in a qualifying race.
• Each team can try three times to achieve the entry standard. The description of the qualifying race will be shown in room CF504 and EIE departmental web site. Moreover, part of the qualifying race will be shown in room CF504 and participants can test their robotic cars there.
• If participants have financial difficulty in building their robotic cars and mobile applications, they may contact Dr. Lawrence Cheung to discuss the issue and our sponsors may provide financial support for these participants if they deem the participants’ difficulty genuine.

Phase III: Final Race (Date: 26 August 2016):

• Participants will be eligible for joining the final race if they achieve the entry standard in the qualifying race.
• Certain details of the final races will not be disclosed until the final race day. Each team can try three times to get the best result.

3. Eligibility

1. All current EIE undergraduate/higher diploma students.
2. Students may form group of one to five members. At least one of them should be a current EIE student (it is acceptable if he/she is going to graduate this summer), while others may be current PolyU undergraduate students from different departments/divisions or undergraduate students from other universities in Hong Kong.

4. Judgment Criteria

The panel of judges of the three phases will consist of academic staff members of the EIE Department and may also include representative(s) from PSL and EGG. The decision of the panel will be final.

5. Prizes

6. Registration

To sign up for the Challenge and submission of the proposal, please log in Learn@PolyU (https://learn.polyu.edu.hk/) and view the instructions stated in the course “EIE Robotic Challenge 2016”.

Notes for Participants

1. The proposals and the final products should be original.
2. Participants should agree to release their product in open source and their design/product may be put on EIE Department’s and sponsors’ official websites that many professionals may know about.
3. For enquiry, please contact Dr. Lawrence Cheung by email: encccl@polyu.edu.hk.
4. To vote for Facebook Choice Award, please visit the following web site: http://www.eggkits.org/purc2016.html.
5. Sponsors may write articles/invite you to write articles on their web sites for this contest, and to take photos and videos to share your experience in this contest.

Organizer:

Department of Electronic and Information Engineering

Sponsor:

Propagation Systems Limited

EGG Technologies Ltd

Qualifying Race Result