New Zealand engineers' robot socks it to the Aussies

Students (from left) Jonathon Platt, Nicholas Wong and Anatoly Kudryashov with their seed-planting robot. Picture / Dean Purcell

Three Auckland engineering students have won a top Australasian competition for their design of a seed-planting robot.

Auckland University mechatronics students Anatoly Kudryashov, Nicholas Wong and Jonathon Platt beat 45 teams from 15 universities at the Warman Design and Build Competition in Sydney recently.

Auckland now holds a record number of wins at the annual competition, having clocked up its fourth top placing since 1997.

The competition challenges second-year mechanical engineering students to design and build a device to solve a practical problem set by the organisers, engineering firm Weir Warman.

This year's challenge, called Project ABC (Autonomously Beautify Countryside), was to design an autonomous device that would accurately and rapidly distribute wild flower seeds along a model circuit made up of roads, trees and fields.

Robots were scored on speed, damage to the environment and ability to plant the fields.

The Auckland trio had spent three weeks designing the prototype, and a further three months building, testing and refining. The design phase was part of their first semester coursework. The trio said their incentive was a trip to Australia, and a chance to prove their lecturer wrong after he said their design wouldn't work.

Team manager and senior lecturer in mechanical engineering Dr Simon Bickerton said the prototype used clever design techniques which set it apart from the competition.

"The design was well thought-out and executed by some very bright students, who had the added incentive of really wanting to beat the Australians," he said.