The Australian Rescue and Soccer teams can be seen here:

I am second from the right. Since I am in Grade 6 in Tasmania, I am the youngest Australian competitor. The three girls of the New South Wales RoboCup Soccer Team can be seen 4^th, 6^th and 7^th from the left. Pictures of all the teams from Australia (including the Dance team from Victoria) can also be seen by clicking here.

We students were helped by scholarships organised by Dr. Damien Kee and supported by Google and the Australian Robotics and Automation Association - many many thanks for this wonderful help.

World RoboCup in China

I am the first Tasmanian to enter the World Robotics Competitions. We flew from Tasmania to Shanghai, China. I did not enjoy the flight much. I get travel sick. When we reached Shanghai, we were met by my uncle.  I stayed with my uncle before going to the RoboCup competitions in SuZhou. Suzhou was about 2 hours drive away from Shanghai. This is the view from my uncle’s apartment in  Shanghai.

Travel between Shanghai and SuZhou was by a 200 kph train. The place I stayed in SuZhou was:

There was a big welcoming sign.

It was a huge University hostel that looked like a hotel. We only have one University in Tasmania. There are nine Universities in SuZhou.

There were lots of students staying there, here are some waiting for a bus to take them to the RoboCup 2008 Competitions; (I am in my pink dress on the right).

The buses going there were crowded::

Here is a sign that welcomed competitors at the Competition site:

Here is another welcoming sign:

These signs were BIG! This is a plan of the RoboCup competition site. My desk was at the middle yellow square at the top of the sign.

I had to go through metal detectors, just like at an aerodrome. China was careful about terrorist attacks, and we passed 35 uniformed security guards on our way to my RoboCup Rescue desk.

The organizers let me later change it for a smaller size – but they still had none available that were small enough to fit me properly. Maybe I will grow into it!

At the competition, I had four school desks to spread out my Lego Robot stuff:

My four desks were part of a row of desks for other competitors. The team on this side was from Germany. The people on the other side were some of the 17 members of the team from Portugal.

There were lots of rows of desks for Rescue competitors:

and even more Rescue competitors on the other side of the aisle:

Lots of teams had special t-shirts; these were from Hong Kong:

These were from Guangzhou China. I shared one of the competition runs with this team. The Chinese team had 8 boys, I was by myself.

The Rescue robots were all sizes and shapes:

One from Mexico had a driver:

This one had 8 wheels:

Some Rescue Robots were not made from Lego at all:

I also saw lots of other robots; for example, robot insects:

Cuddly robots,

and less cuddly robot snakes:

University robots for handling very rough ground,

and soccer robots:

Lots of soccer robots:

Robot elephants for the Dance competitions:

Deep Purple Dance Robots:

Kiss Dance Robots from a High School in Slovakia:

Peacock Robots:

and human-like Dance robots

After the RoboCup Competitions, I was lucky to be taken on a tour of SuZhou, which is a city over 2,500 year-old. SuZhou originally had houses like these.

Suzhou has 60 rivers, and 3,600 bridges. I was lucky to travel around the old city wall in a traditional canal boat,

see a 1,000 year old bridge.

I enjoyed some traditional meals,

and some not-so-traditional meals.

Then we went back to Shanghai, which is a REALLY big city. This one city has a population of 22 million people, more people than in all of Australia!

In Shanghai the sides of buildings can be used as colourful advertising signs.

It also has a skyscraper that is currently the world’s tallest building.

But the nicest thing of the whole trip was to return home to a big hug from Mummy,