USM PENANG, 1 April 2023 – Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) via the School of Computer Sciences, Collaborative Microelectronic Design Excellence Centre (CEDEC) and Sains@USM, in collaboration with Malaysia Investment Development Authority (MIDA), Intel Corporation and Malaysia Productivity Corporation (MPC) recently hosted The Hackathon Kick-Off for Robotics for University (ROBOFUN) workshop, a four-day training programme held at The Makers Lab in USM.

The programme aims to transfer the Autonomous Mobile Robot or AMR-based knowledge into practice to the university lecturers and students in enhancing robotics technology.

Through the training, participants get to learn the AMR setup by building the AMR from scratch, installing the software and executing the programmes to run the AMR autonomously.

Apart from that, participants were also exposed to the sensor detection and processing, where the AMR will utilise to gather the information about its surrounding using the camera and LiDAR sensor.

The programme was jointly-conducted by Intel and SCUTTLE Robotics Asia PLT, and saw the participation of five local universities namely USM, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP), Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) and Universiti Malaya (UM).

According to the Dean of School of Computer Sciences, Professor Dato’ Dr. Bahari Belaton in his welcoming remarks, he thanked all the organising committees as well as the participants who participated in the workshop.

“It is hoped that by joining the workshop, all participants will get to enjoy, learn and experience the Scuttle AMR set-up and as a university, I think this is something that will be very useful for the students as part of the learning experience,” said Bahari.

Meanwhile, the Director of MPC, Northern Region Office, Mohd Azrol Mohd Dali in his speech said that, through the collaborations by the participating organisations, they have managed to produce a robust AMR solution that could fit in their effort to accelerate technology advancement in universities.

“By completing our Train-The-Trainer (TTT), all five participating universities are now ready to enrol participants for ROBOFUN Hackathon.

“I wish all universities the very best in their effort in recruiting the interested undergraduates to participate in the Hackathon and provide the necessary assistance to the teams as they develop their Intel-based Scuttle AMR projects.

“We hope to see the showcasing of some of these wonderful projects during our actual Hackathon pitching session and the announcement of our Hackathon winners,” Mohd Azrol added.

Also present at the officiating ceremony were the Champion Of Electrical & Electronics Productivity Nexus (EEPN) and also the President of Malaysia Semiconductor Industry Association, Dato’ Seri Wong Siew Hai; Director of Central Solutions Enabling INTEL, Dr. Thomas Ooi Wei Min; and Director of CEDEC, USM who is also the coordinator of Makers@USM, Associate Professor Dr. Asrul Nizam Abd Manaf.

Text: Nur Farrah Ezlin Mohd Suhaimi / Photo: Jet Nazer