I had sleepless nights before my team and I had to fly off to Sydney. It was all because we had to hand carry our robots. And of course, there're aluminium plates attached to the robot. Passing the customs will be a headache. We had a really rough time when we reached the airport. Despite us presenting the letters from Monash Malaysia and also Engineers Australia. It took us at least 2 hours to persuade the authorities for us to hand carry our robots.
This was us before leaving Malaysia.
SWAR group 10 :D
Our flight was 11.40pm. It was a safe flight. A pleasant one either. The air ticket (air-asia) was rather cheap, RM 1327. 50 % will be sponsored by the University and the Engineers Australia.
Day 1
Woolbrokers ! Our hostel for 10 days ! It's really a convenient place to stay. It located in a suburb, but only 10 minutes away from the city centre. It was a cheap place to stay. 4 days were paid off by the Engineers Australia. We paid for the rest of our stay. It was 190 dollars per person. When we received the receipt of payment. We were all shocked. That person in charged actually charged each of us a child rate. Do we look that young ?
ANDDD Darling Habour !!! The view was amazing ! 3 minutes walk away from our hostel .
My hair is in a mess :/
The night view was even better.
It was 2 days before the competition. Honestly, we wanted to just tour the whole city all day long and dump our projects aside. The place was just amazing.
Day 2
1 day before the competition, and 9 monkeys, still touring around Sydney. This time, to satisfy my cravings. I was looking for Shashimi to eat. And so we decided to head off to the Sydney Fish Market.
It was 50 Aussie per kilo :3 I knew that the Shashimi was good. But damn, it was the best shashimi that I've had in my entire life. I'm not exaggerating. It was the bomb (Y)
In Malaysia, we have houseflies zooming around food and stuff like that. When I was in Sydney, houseflies were replaced with seagulls -.- they literally FIGHT for your food. When I was unpacking my food, these creatures will start to eye for an opportunity.
Of course we didn't spend the whole day there. We had to rush back to the hostel, and back with our work !
Day 3 , 4 and 5
It was practice day and followed by the finals. The day for all the competitors to try out their robots. The event was held in the Australia Technology Park. I have no idea where is this.
The whole idea of this robot building competition was to build a robot (lol duh ) to carry a certain weight of payload (rice) , over a desired height. It was (20 cm up to 120 cm ). So if you carry a heavier weight, and a higher height, obviously your team will obtain higher marks.
Robot A needs to carry the load from the starting zone all the way to the transferring zone (usually the toughest part). The load is then passed on to robot B, where robot will only have to travel a straight line, to the end zone.
Our workplace. In my opinion, the set up was just perfect for teams to learn from each other. I was jumping from table to table just to get a glimpse of the other robots. The Australians were really friendly and supportive. They'll show you everything there is on their robots. They wasn't any ' kiasu-ness ' in them. This is how people learn :) By sharing.
P.s : Pictures below might bore some people. Lots of tech stuff
University of...... I'm not sure
University of Auckland
University of James Cook
University of Deakin
University of Melbourne
Our group photo :3 Monash Sunway
My teammate and I, setting up our robots before the final run.
A close up of our robot. This was before we sprayed paint it solid black. It was at a 90% completion stage.
YES A VIDEO ! OUR RUN. Nerve wrecking as fcuk.
( Couldn't upload the video right on the blog. It exceeded the 100MB capacity. )
It was a great sense of accomplishment after our run was successful. Months of hard work from my team had finally paid off.
Results : 4th placing :) 1.3 marks away from the 3rd place and also 1000 Aussie dollar >.< But it was all about the experience anyways.
The results table. The University of Newcastle was beyond reach. Their robots were off the charts. Even the second place (RMIT) couldn't compete with them. University of Auckland's robots were amazing. They landed up on the 3rd placing. And there's us, on the 4th :)
4th placing was good enough. Our advisor back in Malaysia said she couldn't sleep after hearing that we were 4th. It was the first time in 27 years that Monash Malaysia landed in the top 5 and also beating Monash Clayton for the first time in idk how may years. Yup, 9 monkeys. Breaking records.
We managed to meet up with the Monash Clayton team. It was like a privilege to us :p
Photo spam again :3
Boys from Monash Clayton and Malaysia
Advisor from Clayton lifting both of my members with one hand each. He lifts A LOT.
Was pretty hyped up after the dinner. I actually lifted up the advisor from Clayton.
\
A photo with all the boys :3
Everything was great. The food, the company, the friendly Australians. However, something was missing. Maybe more like someone. My best friend. We were supposed in a same semester, however, unfortunate reasons tend to happen. He was half a year behind. It would be prefect if he was in our team.
Day 6,7,8 and 9 and 10
The rest of the days were spent touring around the whole place. I think we walked an average of 10km per day. Enjoy the photos == damn lazy to add caption.
People who deserves a lot of credit for what they did :) Couldn't have done it without the both of you.
When we came back, lecturers were buzzing about our news. We were featured on the Monash TV screens
I lol'ed so hard after seeing this.
:D
Goofing around :p
An 11/10 trip. Unforgettable. So, I didn't have any regrets enrolling myself into Engineering :)
