Joining the robot programming contest, engineering students from universities in Hanoi had the opportunity to show their creative passion for research and development of new technologies, especially in the field of control and automation engineering.

Playground for students with a passion for technology

On May 25, the final round of the robot programming contest 2023 took place at the Posts and Telecommunications Institute of Technology. This was the first year in which the Institute organised an inter-university competition for all students nationwide.

Launched on March 1 and divided into qualifying and final rounds, the contest attracted 25 teams from many universities around Hanoi, such as the Vietnam National University (VNU)’s University of Engineering and Technology, Hanoi University of Industry and University of Transport.

After the preliminary round, which took place from April 7 to 9, eight outstanding teams entered the final round.

Eight teams were divided into 2 groups to compete in a round-robin format to choose the four strongest teams to compete in the semi-finals, and then decide the two best teams to compete against each other in the finals.

The contest took place in a vibrant and exciting atmosphere and the teams excellently overcame particularly difficult points, such as stairs, bends, and out-of-focus roads to reach the finish line with the shortest time.

The final round’s judges were experts from universities, who worked fairly and objectively to choose the winning team in each match.

As a result, the organising committee awarded the first prize to the four members of the For Fun team of the Electronics Club from the Posts and Telecommunications Institute of Technology, namely: Le Sy Sang, Dinh Van Trung, Dinh Thi Thanh Tam, and Tran Duc Luong.

The second prize winner was Embedded AIoT Alpha, and the third prizes went to AE Warrios and Canvas.

The organisers also presented the most innovative robot award to the AE Warrios team from PTiT Electronics Club and the potential prize to the UETX team from the VNU University of Technology.

Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Minh, Head of the Faculty of Electronic Engineering under the Posts and Telecommunications Institute of Technology said the robot programming contest 2023 is a common playground for engineering students from universities in Hanoi who have great passion for robots. At the contest, students had the opportunity to show their creative passion for research and development of new technologies, thereby gaining more motivation to improve their knowledge and skills in studying and creativity in scientific research.

The future of control and automation engineering

Professor Kou Yamada from Gunma University (Japan) was the senior advisor and companion of the contest. He has had more than 30 years of experience in the field of robotics, control, and automation theory with more than 300 published research results on leading international scientific magazines.

Professor Kou Yamada said the winner will have a very high chance to visit and exchange in Japan. Japanese businesses attended, encouraged, and discovered talents as well as sponsored the contest.

Professor Kou Yamada shared: “When I interacted and worked with Vietnamese students in general and students of the Posts and Telecommunications Institute of Technology in particular, I realised that they are very smart, able to absorb knowledge and new technology, hardworking, and have strengths in programming. Through the contest, they can practice solidarity skills when working in groups, the ability to solve and respond to new problems during the working process, the resilience and patience, and the skill to work continuously”.

Professor Kou Yamada also talked about the future of control and automation engineering. According to him, the control and automation engineering is a core field and plays a very important role in the development and research of technology, manufacturing high-tech products and sophisticated equipment with high precision. The demand for human resources in this field in Japan is always high and has great competitive advantages.

"Vietnam, a country with strong development, needs to prepare a large enough human resource in control and automation engineering to serve the high-tech and specialised production process”, said Professor Kou Yamada.

Regarding the orientation for the “robots and Artificial Intelligence” majors in the control and automation engineering training programme, Professor Yamada affirmed that “robots and Artificial Intelligence” sector is a good choice and very suitable with the general trend of the world and Japan is very "thirst" for human resources in this field with the demand for thousands of engineers. As for Vietnam, in the next few years, industry and automated production will develop further and these engineers will be rare and precious assets of all businesses.

2023 is the first year when the Posts and Telecommunications Institute of Technology in the north organises enrolment in control and automation engineering under the direction of robots and artificial intelligence, to provide high-quality human resources for businesses and society in the fourth industrial revolution. The training programmes focus on providing knowledge about robot design, programming, modern control theories, deep learning application solutions, and artificial intelligence to make robots and control devices smarter.