Blue Bear, founded in July 2022, is one of the newest members of DKU iNNOVATION iNCUBATOR. Their immediate goal is to design a stable robot structure and program that can pick up and shoot a Frisbee, which also has the ability to score with a two-color cylinder. In December 2022, they presented their research and development results for the first time at the 15th VEX Asian Robot Championship China Selection Competition held in Ocean Flower Island, Hainan, and achieved a good result.
The VEX Educational Robotics program, founded in 2005 by Innovation First International and supported by NASA, has become the largest robotics competition certified by Guinness World Records. The Robotics program creates a platform for students to practice, communicate, and foster their teamwork and innovative problem-solving skills.
InE (Duke Kunshan University Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative) has provided the team with great support in order to make the team smoothly participate in the competition, including the necessary materials and equipment as well as the event operation and travel arrangements. Tianyi Zhang, Zichen Wu, and Sitong Duan then were selected to bring two robots named “Bear 1” and “Bear 2” for competing with robots designed by other prestigious universities.
During the three-day competition, the team methodically completed nine elimination rounds, one skill contest, and one review interview, showing tacit cooperation and extraordinary strength. With all efforts, the team won the third prize in the university group and ranked third in the skills competition in this competition.
Throughout the judging process, the team members demonstrated their outstanding mastery of mechanical structures and innovative imagination. They introduced their robot design concepts and innovations to the judges and detailed the birth process of “Bear 1” and “Bear 2”. The team strived for excellence from the design of the robot’s chassis, flywheel, and fairway to meticulous calculation and balance. Ultimately, “Bear 1” and “Bear 2” won the Jury Award for their comprehensive abilities.
In the future, the Blue Bear team plans to make major improvements to the robot’s main structure with the aim of meeting the requirements of higher difficulty and intensive tasks. They will devote themselves to achieving better results in future robotics competitions, as well as promote social awareness of robotics technology and thinking, and facilitate more collaboration with external institutions.
Blue Bear is one of the key Dii projects supported by InE and has already achieved great performance on their first try. Lab Manager Tom Zhang hopes Innovation Lab can further develop its research and design capability in robots by fully utilizing the experience Blue Blear gained from this competition, helping other students explore interdisciplinary research projects with professors, and developing university-corporation cooperated projects with external organizations.
Professor Liqi Ren, Associate Director for InE, was very satisfied with the results achieved by the Blue Bear team, expecting them to have a more comprehensive development in the future, support more students from different disciplines, and create impacts beyond the DKU campus.
If you are interested in C++ programming, 3D modeling, robot building, robot manipulation, business operations, financial planning and management, or marketing, and wish to contribute to the Blue Bear team, please feel free to contact binyan.sun@dukekunshan.edu.cn for more information.