Anita Rachman

A contestant in the Indonesian Robotics Olympiad held in Jakarta placing a traditional wayang golek puppet on his robot during the award ceremonies. (Photo: Safir Makki, JG)

Sixth-Graders Big Winners in National Robot Competition

A couple of sixth-graders who called their team “Innocence” won first place in the elementary school category of the 2009 Indonesian Robotics Olympiad on Sunday, beating about 100 other contestants.

Innocence — Kelvin Onggadinata and Margaretha Hutabarat, 12-year-old students from Prime One School in Medan — overwhelmed their closest competition when they completed a “triathlon” obstacle course in only nine seconds.

“Our robot had to walk through an obstacle course avoiding walls, picking up points along the way and finally shooting a ball at a target,” Kelvin said. “We’re so glad that we did it in only nine seconds; our closest rival took 34 seconds.”

Kelvin said he and Margaretha designed the robots from kits sold by toy company Lego, which included computer software. He said they had spent the last seven months preparing for the competition.

“It’s all fairly easy, as long as you practiced a lot,” he said.

There were 276 participants from eight cities in the competition, an increase of 140 over last year. The contestants were winners from regional competitions in three categories — the “triathlon” obstacle course for elementary school students, a ball-moving task for junior-high students and a robot billiards game for senior-high competitors.

The winning team in the junior-high division, Alpha Rex, also hailed from Medan, while the senior-high victors were from Surabaya.

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