Study Trip to Japan 2012 - Exchange Programme with KNCT - 2

We went to Kumamoto National College of Technology (KNCT) in Japan from 14th-19th March. When we first arrived at KNCT, we were first greeted by a great scenary of the school.


We later had a briefing about the project, and learnt that this was an exchange trip and we had a competition to build robots. We had to complete our robot in 3 days and at the end of the 3 days, we will have a competition among various teams. Team forming was mixed so TP students were separated and paired with KNCT students. When we first started on the project, we had no idea what to do or how to build a robot. We had to start by first producing a robot design and this design had to be deliverable using the limited amount of resource given to each team. We then had to create the robot after the teams were agreeable as we were sharing the resources so if one design used too much resource, other members would not be able to create their robots. Our team was lucky as the KNCT students were very helpful and helped us out in creating the engine and complicated engineering parts of the robot. The following is a picture of us at work.


The process of creating the robot was not simple as we encountered many problems and we had to perform tests to ensure each component of the robot functions smoothly before we assemble them together. However with the KNCT students assisting us, we manage to solve our problems quickly and effectively.


After our robots were created, we then proceeded with the competition. Each team battled with other teams to collect ping pong balls and the team with the most ping pong balls would win the round. Unfortunately, my robot encountered an engine failure on the first round which resulted in our team being defaulted to the loser’s bracket. The KNCT students assisted me in troubleshooting and within 15 minutes, we got our robots functioning again allowing us to become the champions in the loser’s bracket.



The end of the competition also marked the end of the project and our exchange trip with the KNCT students. Although we lost the competition, I am still glad as I have made many new friends during this exchange trip. We have mixed well with the KNCT students and some of us are even close enough to joke with each other like close friends do. Overall, the trip was enjoyable and we had lots of fun, I hope to come back to Kumamoto again in the future if I have the chance to experience the Japanese culture again.

Posted by Qi Yong