The World Robot Olympiad (WRO) 2019 is a robotics competition that was held in Hungary.

TL;DR

In this post, I am going to share the journey of Guardian 3.0, and about our project.

Introduction

This year, the theme for WRO was Smart Cities. My team consists of Ruo Yan and Robin, both of whom I worked with last year during WRO 2018 as well. Unfortunately, similar to last year, we did not have the chance to start early due to the school cirriculum.

National Robotics Competition (NRC) 2019

What is NRC?

NRC is a competition that is held in Singapore and various countries around the world. This competition is organised by Science Center Singapore and is one of the most competitive competitions in Singapore. The champions of NRC are sent to represent Singapore in the WRO competition.

Discussions

About a month before the competition, just after the semester started, me and Ruo Yan met to start on our discussions (Robin is still doing his internship). There were multiple ideas which we had thought about but ultimately, we settled on the idea of a smart recycle bin.

Why can’t the team be together :(

The competition is just 2 weeks alway and at this point in time, Robin had just come back from his internship. However, it just so happened that I was in Shanghai as part of our school’s cultural exchange programme. While it was unfortunate that we were unable to work physically together as a team, thankfully, I could rely on technology and remotely worked on the project.

Winning NRC?!

Our team was taken aback by the news that we had won the competition and will take part in WRO. To be honest; with the team not meeting even once before and the quality of the projects; we did not have high hopes on the idea being chosen. We were quite contented with being able to participate in NRC this year again, let alone winning the competition.

WRO

Moving on to WRO

So I guess this would be our second year to WRO. This time round, I believe the team is more well-prepared given our previous experiences. After coming back from Shanghai, we met for the first time to improve on the project. (I would like to thank Bryan here for helping bring my laptop back from Shanghai after I accidentally left it at the airport…)

Gamified User-friendly Automated Rubbish Disposing Instrument (Amazing Name)

What is GUARDIAN?

Introducing G.U.A.R.D.I.A.N, our solution to the world’s recycling issues. Guardian’s main aim is to educate the public on recycling.

Why GUARDIAN?

Take for example, do you know that plastic bags are not meant to be recycled? Well, many Singaporeans are unaware about this, and I believe many of us are also unaware of what can or cannot be recycled. The National Environment Agency (NEA) actually has a full list of recyclables though I believe most os us will not bother to read through it.

User Interface

Instead, GUARDIAN helps by sorting out items that can be recycled. While doing so, users are able to interact with the robot. The user can do a quiz to get to know more about what is being sort as well as a quick fact about the item that is sorted. Users are also able to redeem points that can be used.

So how does it work?

GUARDIAN makes use of a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to aid with image recognition. Through the help of Sequential Classification, the AI is able to classify various items to their respective categories. Additionally, we also have a seperate AI to help with the detection of the density of people in a certain location. This gives our system an understanding of the surrounding, bringing the recycle bin to where people need it the most. This is done through the You Only Look Once (YOLO) algorithm. The use of the algorithm was neccessary as the population at a certain location can come and go quickly. YOLO, which is known for its speed in detecting images is useful in this scenario.

We are going to Hungary!

Time does really fly, before we know it, we are on our way to Hungary for the WRO competition.