Two Indonesian robominton teams will compete with 17 other teams from several countries in an international robot contest. The two teams are from Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) and Politeknik (Poltek) Batam. They will represent Indonesia in ABU Asia-Pacific Robocon 2015 conducted at Sportorium of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) on Sunday, 23 August 2015.
Deputy Chief of ABU Asia-Pacific Robocon 2015 Ir. Tony K. Hariadi stated that both teams are the winner and runner up of Indonesia Robot Contest (KRI) for Robominton category organized in June 2015 at UMY. Thus, they deserve to join the ABU Asia-Pacific Robocon 2015. “In fact, each country may send one team. However, since Indonesia acts as the host, Indonesia may send one other team to join the ABU Asia-Pacific Robocon 2015,” he informed.
Tony inserted that each team competing in ABU Asia-Pacific Robocon 2015 is the winner of national ABU Robocon 2015 in their own country. Besides, Tony said that the theme of ABU Asia-Pacific Robocon 2015 is badminton. He argued that most Indonesian people are enthusiastic about badminton. Therefore, Indonesian badminton legends, Susi Susanti and Alan Budikusuma, will be invited in the opening of the contest. They will play badminton with the robominton,” he asserted.
Tony reported that the number of participants of ABU Asia-Pacific Robocon 2015 is 19 teams from 18 countries, namely Indonesia, Mongolia, Vietnam, India, Japan, China, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Fiji, Egypt, Hong Kong, Iran, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, and Sri Lanka. “A team of Fiji arrived in Yogyakarta while the other teams will land on Friday (21/8), and all of them will have running test on Saturday (22/8) at Sportorium of UMY. Succeeding the contest, UMY has engaged a hundred people in the main committee and security of ABU Asia-Pacific Robocon 2015,” he added.
Furthermore, Chief of Umpire of ABU Asia-Pacific Robocon 2015 Dr. Wahidin Wahab uttered that rules and regulations of ABU Asia-Pacific Robocon 2015 have been determined while the game play is the same as the real badminton game. “The distinction is only in the game duration, 3-5 minutes. The regulations are also simpler that each team owns occasion to do four serves, and if a team infringes the regulations, the score will be diminished and added to the opponent,” he elucidated.
Dr. Wahidin continued that there will be 11 umpires monitoring the game of ABU Asia-Pacific Robocon 2015, and all of them are from Indonesia. Besides, the number of judges is five that three of them come from overseas and the others are from Indonesia.