FPS Gaming meets robotics - RoboMaster 2019.

RoboMaster is a robotics, first person shooter, destroy enemy base competition that’s held in Shenzen, China. 

Imagine League of Legends, Dota2 or Overwatch but this time, players are controlling an actual physical robot and fighting to destroy the enemy base by shooting plastic projectiles. There are health bars and laser sensors on the robots and a robot “dies” every time the health bar is empty kind off like laser tag.

Check out the video below to to see the excitement!

This competition first started in 2013 and the 2019 season currently has a prize pool of $600,000. The competition is sponsored by DJI, a world leader in camera drones that basically invented the concept of cameras on drones. Back in 2013, DJI held a summer camp with 24 people with a goal of achieving automatic targeting using computer vision. From there, they grew the camp into a world class competition that has attracted more the 200 global teams to participate.

The RoboMaster 2019 Robotics Competition Is open to international universities. Anyone with passion in robotics and technology can form a team of 5-35 people to conduct research, engineering, design and building of the robots that must meet requirements and constraints set by the organizing committee.

There are 5 types of robots a for the 2019 tournament.

Engineer (medic)

Delivers 17mm projectile ammo and can resurrect team mates.

Standard (infantry)

Launch projectiles and complete map tasks that give team boosts

Hero (heavy gunner)

Launch 42mm projectiles to enemy and delivering more damage

Aerial (scout)

Attacks from the air and provides a birds eye view of the map for the team

Sentry (auto defense)

Fully autonomous that moves along a rail  to guard the base and fires 17mm projectiles.

Each team will also need to past certain technical nodes/levels in order to receive more supporting documentation on building the robots according to tournament specs. The teams will need to provide videos, documents, picture to the organizing committee in order to pass the technical checkpoints before the competition. Only the teams with functioning robots that meet the competition requirements are allowed to come and participate in Shenzen.

The first 96 teams that pass this technical assessment will be  eligible for the China Regional Competitions and then move on to the Final Tournament if they do well. 

The champions prize for the 2019 season is $75,000 and 174 teams have registered. Most of these teams are from Chinese Universities although there are a few US based schools like Virginia Polytechnic Institute and Purdue.

Team Building

This type of competition does very well for the student as he or she can apply the knowledge they have acquired to a real world scenarios. It also boosts team building and team player mentality since the RoboMaster concept itself is a team activity. The Engineer robot pilot has to work with the Aerial robot pilot to complete an objective efficiently while sustaining minimum damage on the robots.

If a robot is damaged, the team has to fix them in time for the next battle. The 2 week tournament is brutal as team members lose sleep fixing and maintaining their robots to perform optimally in the next skirmish.

The organizers and promoters of RoboMaster want to encourage STEM learning in the public spotlight and popular culture by bringing this tournament to the masses by combining entertainment, education and robotics in the same activity.

Perks of winning a competition? A job at DJI and becoming the worlds top RoboMaster!