News & Stories

The HKUST Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) Team defended their champion title in the 14th Hong Kong Regional of the MATE International ROV Competition. The ROV Team, a sub-team of the HKUST Robotics Team, has been named champion in this competition for the ninth consecutive year. They will represent Hong Kong to take part in the MATE International ROV Competition 2019 in Kingsport, Tennessee, US on June 20-22.

Nearly 40 distinguished scholars from Hong Kong, Macau and the Mainland attended the two-day Xiangshan Science Conference hosted by The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) yesterday. The Honourable Mrs Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, Chief Executive of HKSAR, Mr Chen Dong and Dr Tan Tieniu, Deputy Directors of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in HKSAR officiated at the closing ceremony of this high-profile conference today, which was founded by the State Science and Technology Commission (now the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China, PRC) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The Robotics Team of The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has scooped nine awards this year – including the world championship of the Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) International Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV) competition in Long Beach, California – the first Asian team who gained this honor since the game began in 2002. In the MATE contest, the ROV division of HKUST’s Robotics Team Beluga beat 24 competitors from regions across Europe, US, Canada, Asia and Middle East – all champions from their own countries, to gain the world championship and the Safety Conscious Award. This came after another division of the team Fiery Dragon won the Hong Kong Robocon Competition for the 8th time in June.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) hosted its annual Underwater Robot Competition and a record high 300 students from 42 different primary and secondary school signed up for the four-day event. As part of the University’s effort to promote inclusion and robotics education among the wider community, the Competition invited students from mainstream schools, students with special educational needs (SEN), physical disability, as well as ethnic minorities to take part and make their own inventions.

What would happen to our lives if robots could read our emotions and act like a friend?  It may sound like some plots in science fiction movies, but Prof Pascale Fung from the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has realized this dream.  An expert in intelligent systems that understand and empathize with humans, Prof Fung’s latest project “Zara the Supergirl” is a prototype machine capable of chatting with humans in both English and Mandarin, it is expected to chat in more languages including French in the future.

HKUST Robotics Team beat nine competing teams from six local tertiary institutions in the Robocon 2015 Hong Kong Contest. HKUST has been awarded championship in this competition for five consecutive years since 2011. The contest theme for this year is “ROBOMINTON – BADMINTON ROBO-GAME”, which requires students to design and construct their own robots. The robots were then made to participate in badminton games designed for them. Computer Science student and team leader Au Chun-ming said: “I wish there was an easier way to winning but the truth is there was none. The two HKUST teams with a total of 29 members spent three hours a day to practise and improve the smoothness and accuracy of the robots’ movements.”

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) is committed to the research and construction of robots and autonomous systems, in order to provide primary and secondary school students a chance to participate in the making of robots, HKUST invited students from Primary 4 to Form 3, as well as those with special education needs (SEN), to join an underwater robot competition at HKUST. A team of female students and a team with SEN members won the champion and the first runner-up. HKUST Center for Global and Community Engagement, which co-organized the competition with School of Engineering, School of Business and Management, School of Science, School of Humanities and Social Science and Interdisciplinary Programs Office, recruited 27 student mentors to lead a 2-day workshop for 18 participating teams, teaching them basic skills in robot making.

The HKUST Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) Sub-team, which consists of 14 HKUST students from different disciplines, won championship in Explorer Class in the 9th Hong Kong/Asia Regional IET/MATE Underwater Robot Challenge in April. This is the fourth time that HKUST has won the championship. Other than participating in the competition, HKUST students also integrate their engineering knowledge in community projects. This year, the ROV Sub-team provided training workshops for children in the Ebenezer School and Home for the Visually Impaired in Hong Kong to promote engineering knowledge to all levels of society.