Japan, May 2015 – Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) student team was crowned champion of the @Home Robot League category and 2nd runner up of the  @Home Simulation League category, at the RoboCup Japan Open 2015. The competition was held in Fukui, Japan from 1st to 4th May 2015.

The UTM student team collaborated with two other teams from two Universities involving the University of Tokyo, Japan and Nankai University, China, where they collectively formed a group called ‘KameRider’.

The group from UTM comprised a total of 10 students of whom 8 are undergraduates while 2 are postgraduates.  Eight undergraduates, namely, Mohamad Hafizuddin Majek, Seow Yip Loon, Muhammad Faiz Muhammad Rozi, Ikhwanuddin Md Isa, Salwa Mohsin, Raden Muhammad Mu’az Muhammad Munim, Nicole Tham Lei May and Mohammad Nawawi Mat Yusof are Electrical Engineering students, while 2 undergraduates, namely,Muhammad Najib Abdullah and Muhammad Farhan Mustar, are Mechanical Engineering students. The 2 postgraduate students also in the team are Tey Wei Kang and Lim Kian Sheng, both from the Malaysia Japan International Institute of Technology (MJIIT).

According to the team advisor, Dr. Mohd Ridzuan Ahmad, the competition requires students to apply their technical knowledge in an innovative an creative manner. The RoboCup@Home contest requires students  to develop robots which can interact with human beings in daily life situations, from kitchen work and housecleaning to moving things and communicating with people at home.The contest is the largest international annual competition of its kind for autonomous service robots and is part of the RoboCup initiative.

Founded in 1997, the RoboCup Open is an international robotics competition that aims to promote robotics and Artificial Intelligence.