In just under a month, thirty-six robots and three hundred young people will converge on the University of Southampton for the largest Student Robotics Competition to date.

In November 2012, a lecture theatre packed with sixth formers started designing robots to take part in “A Strange Game”. In this game, Robots must move large cubes onto pedestals to form lines of tokens in a big game of noughts-and-crosses, while stopping their rivals from scoring too. And to make it more interesting, their robots must operate completely autonomously, only taking commands from a Python program on board the robot.

Since then, the teams have spent four months prototyping and testing their robots. Some really exciting designs have been developed, including scissor lifts, vacuum suckers, and even a hovercraft!

This year the competition will be taking place at the Students Union building at the University of Southampton, over the 13th and 14th of April. Please note that competitors must bring their ticket with them. Families, friends and all members of the public are welcome to attend too, with persons under the age of 18 accompanied by an adult.

We look forward to seeing you there, and may the best robot win!

The SR Team

The KickStart event for this year has happened, the rules have been declared and the competition is underway. A number of teams have already started building their robots and the competition this year is sure to be fierce. With a whole host of new teams, as well as veterans that have been competing since the beginning, we (the Blueshirts) are looking forward to seeing some amazing robotic creations from the competitors.

If you’ve got a blog/youtube video/anything else awesome you’d like to share with us feel free to email info@studentrobotics.org or tweet us @StudentRobotics.

The forums and the IDE will be available shortly.

The annual Student Robotics KickStart is coming up this Saturday! It is with this event that SR2013 begins. Teams from around the country will be attending to meet other competitors, discover this year’s game, and learn about the challenges ahead of them.

Information for registered teams:

KickStart will be happening on Saturday the 3rd of November — please aim to arrive at 9:00. We’ll be starting in Building 32 on the University of Southampton’s Highfield Campus, please see the campus map (pdf) and this street map, showing the location of the campus. The day will finish at around 15:30, and we will be handing out kit then. This will include 2m aluminium L-sections, so please be sure you can transport them.

The schedule for the day is as follows:

• 10:00 - Arrival
• 10:30 - Introductory talk, introduction to the game etc
• 11:00 - Mini-game and competition
• 12:50 - Break for lunch
• 14:00 - Talk: Mechanics
• 14:30 - Talk: Electronics
• 15:00 - Short break, with biscuits and tea
• 15:20 - Talk: Software
• 15:50 - Talk: Teamwork and organisation
• 16:20 - Kit collection

We’ll be putting out signs indicating places to park on campus. Unfortunately, we cannot provide food — we recommend either bringing your own lunch or visiting one of the shops around and about the campus.

We very much hope to see you there!

The SR Team