A University of the Sunshine Coast student team has won the hardest programming challenge at an international robotics event with their autonomous mouse robot that solved a maze to take the cheese.
Nathan Cavalli, Gavin Behrens, Kirra Marshall and Amanda Finch built, programmed and tested the bot to compete at RoboRAVE Australia held recently at UniSC Arena alongside more than 400 university and school students from around the world.
“It was a very exciting win and we’re already planning improvements for 2025,” said Amanda
“It was a very exciting win and we’re already planning improvements for 2025,” said Amanda, who is studying a Bachelor of Human Services and acted as team liaison.
Their small, agile robot was coded by Computer Science student Nathan and Tertiary Preparation Pathway student Gavin, and built by Kirra who is studying a Bachelor of Engineering (Mechatronic) Honours.
Amanda said UniSC’s community robotics clubs, called MindSET-do, also had multiple successes at the two-day event on campus at Sippy Downs.
“Our MindSET-do clubs sent 13 teams with 24 combined primary and high school students from Gympie to the Fraser Coast,” she said.
“They competed across most categories, including fifth in the Open Sumo ES category.”
She said the clubs inspired students to learn more about coding, robotics and technology, while competition day also taught resilience and determination.
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