The JCU Robo Club has just held our first major event, in the form of a line-follower robot death-match. The challenge was perfect for the club to establish our purpose of promoting robotics as a fun hobby and teaching the skills required from the very basics.

Throughout the semester we held a number of sessions, including a build session where students learned how to solder and another where students learned to program Arduino boards. The club is proud to be promoting the learning of these skills for fun rather than business. The club has been successful in making robotics accessible, proven by the fact that both the winners and runners up were completely new to robotics six months ago.

Preparing for the competition

The robots used were Pololu Zumos supplied by Robot Gear. The flexibility of these robots is such that we plan on using them for a number of upcoming projects, including a sumo competition in the upcoming semester and possibly for a special real-life video game project we have on the drawing board.