Guangzhou youth stands out in robotics competition

Shao Yujun, a seventh-grade student at Guangzhou Baiyun Experimental School, won the South Pacific division of the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) along with his teammates at the Sydney Olympic Stadium on March 17. 

The FRC is the top sci-fi competition in the FIRST series and is oriented toward teenagers aged 13 to 18. Participants were divided into 68 teams form countries such as China, Australia, the US, and the UK.

The Guangzhou team performed well from the start and stayed in fourth place for three rounds in a row. However, their robot started to malfunction after being struck by its opponent in the fourth round and fell to 12th place. However, the team kept their cool and continued focusing on the game, eventually entering the finals.

In the elimination rounds, the Guangzhou team's No 6368 robot formed an alliance with the Zhenjiang team and the Australia team, achieving a first place victory in the Sydney selective and winning a ticket for China to the 2019 FRC finals in the US.

An FRC team is like a small group of entrepreneurs, and preparing for a game is like developing a startup. The team is divided into several groups, with each group responsible for different tasks, such as design, mechanics, and venue selection. Shao Yujun is the head of the programming club at his school and arranged for his classmates to learn programming together. During the game, he was assigned to the mechanic group and played a crucial role in ensuring the robot functioned properly.