SAM Daily Times

National Engineering Robotics Contest

National Engineering Robotics Contest is an inter universities robotics competition held annually since 2005 at the College of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology, Pakistan (NUST).

The contest is organized by the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan, the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Careers Project and National University of Sciences and Technology, Pakistan, with more than 60 Pakistani universities participating in the event and aims to train individuals for engineering services in Pakistan, and cash prizes are awarded to the winners.

FFRC 2003

This contest started in 2003 with the name "Fire fighting robotic contest", It was won by DRIAD of CEME,NUST.

APFFRC 2004

Then in 2004, it was organized with the name of "All Pakistan Fire Fighting Robotic Contest", Snow Storm Of CEME,NUST won that.

NERC 2005

Current name of "National engineering robotics contest" was given to this contest in 2005 an it was won by Aatish from Air University (Pakistan Air Force).

NERC 2006

In 2006, The concept of the contest got changed and instead of fire extinguishing, the ball putting concept came, where autonomous robots have to place the balls in baskets at different pre-defined location, following a predefined map. this time CEME, NUST made a come back and "Oye-Hoye Returns" won the contest for CEME, NUST for the third time.

NERC 2007

In 2007, the contest plan was nearly the same as of 2006, with changes in the map and the basket heights along with strict restriction on the area and weight of the robot, even this time around the result were same and CEME,NUST marched toward another milestone the "hat-trick" of titles of NERC. Although the robot volume restriction was never met by the CEME NUST team, they somehow bent the rules and went for the first prize.

NERC 2008

In 2008, Heights of the baskets were changed along with changes in the map, but this time the most difficult part was that the number of balls to be potted in the net were doubled and all the robots have to reload the balls within the arena, CEME registered their NERC dominance by winning the title fifth time and completed the hat-tricks of the title along with it.

NERC 2009

In 2009, the balls were replaced by cylindrical wooden Pegs, and Baskets with Pigeon Stands, linings in the maps were broken to make robots use more and more sensors. In 2009 after a long time the winning streak of CEME,NUST were broken by another young institute (as it was done in 2005 by Air University), this time it was CHALLENGER from Center for Advanced Studies in Engineering (CASE) who won the 5th National Engineering Robotics Contest (NERC) 2009 while Sylar from CEME, NUST stood second and GLADIATOR from Center for Advanced Studies in Engineering came 3rd. T-BOB of Center for Advanced Studies in Engineering while LKR and NEO of CEME,NUST received the"Best Engineering Design" award.

NERC 2010

In 2010, Ramps were included in the floor, with restriction in the peg palcing sequence and position in pigeon stand. FIREBOLT from Center for Advanced Studies in Engineering (CASE) won the 6th National Engineering Robotics Contest (NERC) 2010. FALCON from Center for Advanced Studies in Engineering received the"Best Engineering Design" award. Over 155 teams participated in NERC 2010. Prizes go up to Rs. 0.425 million for all categories.

NERC 2011

NERC 2011 was held from 28 June 2011 to 2 July 2011. This year CASE participated with 8 teams, College of EME with 22 teams, NED University 24 teams, and there were teams from GIKI, FAST, LUMS, UET Lahore, SEECS NUST and universities from all over Pakistan, including teams from the provinces of Baluchistan, KPK, and rural Sindh.

This year 30 Teams from over all 160 qualified for the final. Even though the top six best performances were claimed by CASE (1st by Infinity, 3rd by McFrenzy, 4th by Firebolt, 5th by Unexpected & 6th by Phenom) and CEME, NUST(2nd by M6) but the two institutions earlier decided to give away their cash prizes and ranks to rest of the universities to promote the field of Robotics in Pakistan.