ITS Campus, ITS News –  Sapuangin Team, the pride of Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) again made a fruitful achievement in the international arena. Carrying ITS name, this time Sapuangin Team wins four awards at the same time in the annual international Shell Eco-Marathon (SEM) 2021 which was announced after the final ended, Thursday (8/7) night.

Rida Ayu Arfianti, External Relationship of Sapuangin ITS Team, said that SEM is an annual competition held by Shell, the oil company, to meet challenges in energy technology development by designing and building the most energy-efficient vehicles. “But this year, the Shell Eco-Marathon (SEM) adapted the competition to be completely virtual,” she explained.

The ITS Sapuangin team has participated in this prestigious world competition in a row since 2010. Since then, the Sapuangin Team has also never been absent to defend the championship title and awards from the various categories held.

In the SEM competition, which was participated by various universities from four continents (America, Asia, Africa, and Europe), each team competed in four sub-competitions and a bonus challenge. “The four sub-competitions are Pitch the Future, Autonomous Programming Competition, Off-Track Awards, and Virtual Technical Inspection and Bonus Challenge,” said this Physics Engineering student

In the Autonomous Programming Competition category, Rida explained that this competition challenged the participating teams to develop path planning, perception, and control algorithms for autonomous vehicles using Robot Operating System (ROS). The code is then tested in a simulated environment using Microsoft AirSim using an unreal engine. “In this category, the ITS Sapuangin Team managed to get 2nd Place Autonomous Programming,” she said.

Then the Off-Track Awards sub–competition consisted of several competition categories, namely the Technical Innovation Award, Communications Award, Vehicle Design, Safety Award, Simulate to Innovate Award, and the Data and Telemetry Award. “This time, the ITS Sapuangin Team managed to come out as champion in the Data and Telemetry Award category,” Rida said proudly.

Besides, as she continued, there was a Virtual Technical Inspection sub-competition, where participants had to go through this stage if they wanted to run on the track during the race. However, because all activities are carried out virtually, inspections of vehicles and completeness of drivers are carried out through video collection. “The 3rd Place Virtual Technical Inspection title was successfully won by the ITS Sapuangin Team in this sub-race with the Urban Concept category,” she said.

Rida explained that 235 teams from international universities accumulated the points obtained from winning several Global Virtual League sub-races. The points obtained by the ITS Sapuangin Team succeeded in bringing ITS’s name to the 4th Place Global Virtual League. “This is certainly something to be proud of because it has to compete with various universities in the world,” he said.

Responding to their proud achievements, Rida expressed hope in the future for the ITS Sapuangin Team to continue to make more achievements for ITS and Indonesia, even though it is still in the current pandemic condition. (ITS Public Relations)

Reporter: Tyara Novia Andhin