Record Over 450 Students Participate in SUTD’s Third Reconfigurable Robotics Competition

Whenever he sees a problem, Akilan Aravindan, a Primary Four student from Northland Primary School, would want to find ways to fix it – with coding.

His interest to learn coding and solve problems was so apparent that his teacher signed him up for RoboRoarZ¹ Singapore, a unique design-centred reconfigurable robotics competition co-organised by the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), National Robotics Programme, IEEE Singapore Section, and IEEE Women in Engineering Singapore. RoboRoarZ aims to foster creativity, innovation, and collaboration among students competing with the SUTD-designed reconfigurable robotic platform “Smorphi”.

Akilan is but one of over 450 students from close to 40 local and overseas schools who is competing in RoboRoarZ Singapore that is taking place at SUTD on 23 and 24 January 2025. This is by far the largest number of participants since its first run in 2023. In all, about 95 teams of students are participating in this competition, made possible with the support of organisations such as first-time sponsor Mapletree Investments.

On the record turnout this year, Mohan Elara Rajesh, Associate Professor with the Engineering Product Development Pillar at SUTD and Organising Chair of RoboRoarZ said: “Kids, who code, are not just learning to code. They’re learning to problem-solve, think critically, and create. I am very excited that schools, both local and overseas, are sending their students to RoboRoarZ as it gives them the opportunity to not only learn coding skills, but to also put what they have learned into practice in a fun and friendly competition.”

The theme for this year’s RoboRoarZ Singapore is on “bridging productivity gaps between people and food delivering robots”. Participants compete in teams of up to five members using the SUTD-designed reconfigurable robotic platform “Smorphi” in four different categories, namely upper primary (10-12 years), secondary (13-17 years), senior (16-20 years), and tertiary (20 years and above). Each team is to design, develop, evaluate and iterate its robot to complete a ‘food’ delivery task in the fastest time. The developed robots will use computer vision and artificial intelligence (AI) in understanding their environment as they perform competitive delivery tasks.

Mayor of South East District, Mr Mohd Fahmi Aliman, who graced the opening ceremony yesterday as Guest-of-Honour, also toured SUTD’s Robotics and Automation Research Laboratory. “SUTD has consistently demonstrated its commitment to fostering innovation through interdisciplinary learning. RoboRoarZ shows how the university empowers future thinkers, makers and leaders,” said Mayor Fahmi. “What makes events like RoboRoarZ important is the focus on nurturing young minds. This aligns with one of South East Community Development Council’s (South East CDC) aims to empower students with a spirit of lifelong learning and an adaptability mindset, equipping them with the critical skills needed to thrive in an ever-evolving job market in the near future.”

Following the opening ceremony, students competed on Smorphi Imaginary, a virtual platform where tasks are assigned to students. They had to learn how to use the right coding to navigate their Smorphi. They were then evaluated based on how efficiently and quickly they solved the tasks given. Participants also attended a coding workshop, where they learned coding such as Blockly and embedded script-based programming to prepare them for today’s competition in the arena.

In the arena today, teams are to navigate Smorphi along a given path to collect the required number of point tags or action tags or both, depending on the category. For the primary and secondary categories, teams only need to collect point tags in a continued path, while for the seniors and tertiary categories, teams have to collect both point and action tags in a discontinued path. Each category has a stipulated time in which teams are required to complete the tasks. The team in each category with the highest points wins.

Akilan, who participated in the primary category, was excited about what he had learned so far. Said the 10-year-old: “I am always excited to try new things. RoboRoarZ 2025 is a great chance for me to show what I can do. Whenever I see problems, like how people in wheelchairs struggle to move, I feel like I want to create and code something to fix them. I like coding because there’s always something new to learn, like different coding languages. It feels fun to explore all the things I can create, and my goal is to learn as much as I can.”

Mr Edmund Cheng, Chairman of Mapletree Investments, gave out the prizes to the top five winning teams of both the Smorphi Imaginary and arena competition for the Senior League at the end of the competition. He said: “Mapletree believes in nurturing the young, especially in the areas of STEM. As such, we are more than happy to support RoboRoarZ in its endeavour towards establishing a vibrant local and international community that unleashes the power of reconfigurable robots in solving real-world challenges.”

1 https://www.roboroarz.sutd.edu.sg/