STEP – Science, Technology, and Education in Pakistan

A Pakistani robot participated in RoboCup 2009 for the first time in the competition’s history. The robot, named Saviour, was developed by a team of students from Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology (GIKI). Saviour is a rescue robot designed to find survivors in a disaster situation.

Robo cup is an international competition whose participants, as the name suggests, are robots. The main focus of the competition is RoboCup Soccer, which consists of teams of robots playing soccer. However, the contest also includes other competitions including RoboCup Rescue and Robot Dancing.

RoboCup^TM is an international research and education initiative. Its goal is to foster artificial intelligence and robotics research by providing a standard problem where a wide range of technologies can be examined and integrated.

Saviour (shown in the image) participated in the RoboCup Rescue League. It was ranked 17th out of a total of 20 participants in the Rescue competition. The Saviour team should be commended for fielding a high-tech robot in an international competition. According to the Saviour team blog, a new group of GIKI students has already started preparation for participation in RoboCup 2010, with the current Saviour team in advisory position. I think Pakistani engineering universities should consistently field teams in international engineering competitions. This is an excellent way to expose Pakistani students to the state of the art in engineering technology. Note that the exposure is not limited to the students participating in the competition, as their peers and juniors also learn a lot from them, and get a chance to improve on the projects for the next version of the competitions.