A few moments ago, the robotic team of Tadulako University (Untad) has successfully won the Indonesia Robot Contest 2017 for The Best Design category in regional level. The contest was held on May, 4-25^th 2017 in Telkom University, Bandung. The robotic team consisted of Andreas Sumaila as the team leader, and the other two members were Ardiansyah and Januar from Faculty of Engineering, undergraduate students of Informatics Engineering Department. In that contest, their robot was competed with the other 31 robots from 31 regional universities including West Java, Kalimantan and Sulawesi. Below are the full interview reports between untad.ac.id and the robotic team of Untad.

1. Could you tell us what is Indonesia Robot Contest?

• Indonesia Robot Contest (IRC) is a robotic competition participated by students of higher institutions, state or private universities registered in the Indonesian Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education including Tadulako University. In this period, our team was one the representatives of Regional 2 consisting of West Java, Kalimantan, and Sulawesi. The regional level of IRC started from May 4^th and ended on May 25^th. Before joining this competition, had submitted the proposal to the committee of IRC 2017.

2. As the representatives of Untad, could you please introduce to us who your team members are and what kind of robot you present in that contest?

• Our robotic team consisted of Andreas Sumaila as the leader and programmer of the robot, an undergraduate student of Informatics Engineering; Ardiansyah as the member who dealt with electrical components of the robot, an undergraduate student of Informatics Engineering; and Januar as the member and mechanic of the robot, an undergraduate student of Mechanical Engineering. The type of robot we made was a fire-fighting robot. It required more exploration of our competences such as design, implementation, and strategy which should follow the theme and rules the committee had determined. For this reason, we can compete fairly in the arena. The process of making robot took about 5 months since we have to adjust the sensors, mechanics, programs, electronics, and connection with the robot. As the participant, we always develop our competence, creativity, innovation, and strategy before and during the contest.

3. What are the specialties of your robot so you deserved winning The Best Design category of 31 universities who joined the contest?

• So our robot has an octagonal shape and every side has specific function. For the colors, the upper part of the robot is dominated by blue while the feet is orange. We designed this robot specifically for extinguishing fire the committee had set in a labyrinth. Not only passing the complicated maze smoothly, our robot was also appreciated by the judges for its unique design, shape, and color. We have pushed our limit so this robot successfully won The Best Design category of 31 robots/ universities in this regional level contest. Now, we are preparing our team to compete in national level and hopefully we can make our way to international level as well. We are very contented that we have accomplished this stage since the robots of our competitors in IRC 2017 were also impressive and sophisticated.

4. What are your expectations in the future after participating in Indonesia Robot Contest 2017?

• Please pray for us, for our victory. We hope we can do our best in the next national level contest and go international as well. Besides, we need to improve our robot with latest capacities because in the previous event the other robots we competed with were highly developed. We really want to build more advanced robot yet we have restricted budget. Finally, we wish we can push our creativity to produce better robot than before.