Team Barunastra ITS triumphed win in the Roboboat Competition 2018 in Florida, USA.

ITS Campus, ITS News –  Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS), received yet another prestigious achievement. This time, team Barunastra ITS successfully took 1^st place with their autonomous ship Nala Heroes in the 11^th Annual Internatioal Roboboat Competition 2018 in Daytona Beach, Florida, USA, which was held on Sunday, June 24^th, or Monday June 25^th Indonesian Time.

From the final result of the annual competition which took place since June 18^th, team Barunastra ITS achieved the highest score of 4,996. Team Barunastra ITS’ score beat the results from the other teams that made it to the finals who were dominated from the host country, USA. Among them were Georgia Tech (4,200), Hagerty High School (958), Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (818), Delft University of Technology of the Netherlands (343), Nathan Hale High School (337), University of Michigan (318 ), and Florida Atlantic University (147).

Barunastra ITS’ team leader, Khalif Aji Puspito explained that there were 14 teams that participated in this unmanned robot ship race. The 14 teams were given the opportunity to compete. From Indonesia alone, in addition to team Barunastra ITS, a roboboat team from Diponegoro University (Undip) Semarang also competed. The other teams consisted of teams from countries such as Netherlands, Mexico, India,  Canada, and from the United States.

Originally, only six teams were qualified to advance to the next stage of the competition. However, there were other advanced qualifications for the teams that did not make it to the next stage, making a total of eight teams that would compete in the next stage of the competition. “Thank God team Barunastra was able to reach the 1^st rank in the qualifying round with a total score of 3,118,” explained Aji, contacted via online message on Monday morning, June 25^th.

Aji shared that the success of team Barunastra taking first place was a journey filled with struggles. Multiple obstacles were faced in the team during the qualifying round. The first qualification round went smoothly, but the problems appeared during the second and third qualification. From problems such as the malfunctioning of their GPS, compass, and tower lamp (to indicate the boat from being automatic or manual), to their laptop malfunctioning, making them unable to control the boat.

The Nala Heroes from team Barunastra ITS being weighed during the initial inspections.

“However, team Barunastra’s Nala Heroes’ success during the first qualifications covered the majority of points earned during the second and third qualifications,” explained Aji, the student of Marine System Egineering.

According to Aji, during the completion of the qualification rounds, Aji and his teammates tried to find the source of the problem, which turned out to be the malfunctioning of the extension component used on their boat. Due to it being impossible to be re-tested in the water, the team from ITS tested their boat on the ground. “Thank God the boat worked like it was supposed to, and during the finals, the boat successfully complete the run within the time of 8 minutes, from the total allocation time of 20 minutes,” he explained.

In response to this exciting news, ITS Rector, Prof. Ir Joni Hermana MScES PhD expressed his gratitude and pride was beyond measured. “Thank God, after the achievement in Canada last week (Team Ichiro ITS), another achievement was received from our students this time from team Barunastra ITS from the land of Uncle Sam. We are very grateful to all of those who were involved in this success,” said the professor of Environmental Engineering, who was very grateful with the news. (ITS Public Relations)

Nala Heroes Team Barunastra in preparation for the race.