View source for Sligo students control their robots

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| publication = Sligo Weekender
| file = 2006-05-16 Sligo Weekender.jpg
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| date = 2006-05-16
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| pages = 11
| language = English 
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| text = THIS could have been a scene from Dr Who and the Daleks except this time the actors were from Sligo.

Dr Who helps humans on a distant planet to overcome their robotic masters while at RoboCup Ireland, the Sligo students were doing their best to keep the robots under control.

Students from three schools took part in RoboCup Ireland 2006 last week. It is a national competition where students design, develop, build and programme a fully functional robot to battle it out against other robots, designed by other schools.

Transition Year students from Summerhill College, Ursuline College and Mercy College in Sligo town participated in three individual competition categories - soccer, rescue and dance.

Students who are sports-minded prepared their robot to play a game of soccer by programming the robot to identify an infrared ball and move the ball towards the opposition's goal.

Dance orientated students had to develop a robot which can perform to dance music with the robots being judged on creativity, costume and dance moves.

Students aspiring to a life in the rescue service were pitted against each other to develop a robot which can help identify fictitious accident victims and negotiate a number of obstacles in order to rescue the victim.

RoboCup, which has been running internationally since 1997. challenges students to foster artificial intelligence and robotics research in order to prepare their robot to take part in one of the three disciplines.

All competitors took part last Friday May 12 at the National College of Ireland in Dublin.

The overall winners in each category will travel to represent Team Ireland at the RoboCup International Championships, in Breman, Germany next month.

But sadly, there were no Sligo winners, not this year anyway.


Caption: ROBOT: At the RoboCup Ireland 2006, Ursuline college students Claire Gallagher, Michelle McCabe, Sofia McLoughlin and Sarah Cullen. Wearing bright costumes and feather boas the girls won a special award for the Best Posterboard.

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