After preparing for over half a year, sophomores Jake Park, James Cho and Eli Oh travelled to Australia from Oct. 29-Nov. 1 to attend the Group of 20 (G20) Technology Challenge, which featured a robotics competition. Although it was their first time competing in an international competition, their efforts stood out as they returned as first place in the competition along with five other Korean teams,.

“In the beginning, I was worried that our group wouldn’t be able to create a competent robot, as no member had previous experience in mechanical production or computer coding,” Jake said. “However, after our group was totally immersed into the project, we became extremely productive and efficient in our use of time ”

In the competition, students were required to assemble robots on the spot and present the purpose of the robot and procedure in which it was assembled. International judges graded the robots in different categories regarding creativity, and the teams with the best results entered the final round of the competition.

“Even though we had limited time, we calmly assembled the robot as we had repeatedly practiced during [previous meetings] and tried our best to appeal our robot with our presentation,” Eli said. “Because we were all prepared, the competition went rather fluently without many problems.”

In accordance with the “environment” theme that required participants to think of ideas that would solve major environmental issues through technology, the team took the challenge to build a robot that would solve the issue of Styrofoam pollution in the ocean. The sophomore team prepared a cockroach robot that could pull in large quantities of Styrofoam and organically digest it.

“After brainstorming ideas, we found out that the biggest pollution problem in Australia was the issue of Styrofoam in the ocean, “James said. “We then found that cockroaches were the only insects that could organically digest the material. Therefore, we decided to create a giant cockroach carrying boat.”

According to Jake, they were able to tremendously improve their robotics skills, as they gained experience constructing a robot in a limited time. They plan to attend the competition again next year.

“The competition was an experience that I would never forget,” Jake said. “I not only improved on my robotics skills, but also learned to cooperate with others in creating a final product. By attending other competitions, I hope to further my experiences and knowledge regarding robotics and become one step closer to realizing my dream as a engineer.”