We are the Australian providers of Zero Robotics - a free, international, high school coding competition where students compete to run their code in SPACE!
Check out the main MIT Website for information about the competition.
Zero Robotics software, submissions, tutorials and forums are all hosted on the MIT website. This site lists important dates in AEST/AEDT, some extra resources and Australia specific updates and information.
ISS Finals
A live stream of the finals, straight from the International Space Station was held at the University of Sydney on the 28th of January.
Four teams: SPATAR (Gosford High School), Trinity Infinity (Trinity College), SpaceXD (Parramatta High School) and Scholar Spacemen (Sydney Boys High School) ran their code in space, and an alliance of SpaceXD, Scholar Spacemen and a Romanian school won the Virtual (wild-card) Championship.
Congratulations to everyone involved, running your code on the International Space Station is a huge achievement. We hope that this is only the beginning, and you continue to create new and interesting things in the future.
Post Competition Survey
Please fill in the post competition survey!
It gives us feedback on the competition so that we can improve, justify funding, and provide this opportunity to other students in the future.
Important Dates
International Competition (2018)
| Event | Location | Date | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2D Submission Deadline | online | Saturday 13 October | 3pm AEDT |
| 3D Submission Deadline | online | Wednesday 7 November | 4pm AEDT |
| Alliance formation | online | Sunday 11 November | TBD |
| Alliance Code submission | online | Saturday 10 December | 4pm AEDT |
| Virtual Code submission (updated!) | online | Monday 24 December | 4pm AEDT |
| ISS Code submission (updated!) | online | Saturday 24 December | 4pm AEDT |
| ISS Finals | The University of Sydney | Friday January 28th | 8pm until late/early |
FAQ
How much does it cost? It's free!
Are students controlling the robots live on the International Space Station? No. They are writing autonomous code. Like a self driving car, once they've finished coding it, the robots will run on their own.
How much programming experience
do my students need?
Students will find this very hard unless they know the basics.
We recommend that they learn programming logic, if statements, loops and functions before joining the competition.
How big are the teams? Teams are made up of 5-20 students, but often smaller teams are easier to manage.
When will the finals event date be released? We have to fit into the ISS timetable for holding the finals event, which can change at short notice due to crew rotations and experiments. It is normally held in Early January.
What is the time commitment? A few hours per week - more for less experienced or highly ambitious teams.
What do students learn? Project management, international teamwork, coding skills and problem solving.
Do I really need to login with a gmail address? Yes, you need to log into the MIT website with an email linked to a Google account. Some NSW det email addresses are linked to an account, some aren't.
Do we need to use Slack to communicate?
You will need to use a collaboration tool, since most
of the students' work will be done outside of the classroom, especially during the alliance phase of the competition.
Slack is a great option, that is widely used by engineering teams.
However, we understand that it is blocked by many school firewalls.
Why can't I see my team on the MIT website? If you have only just registered/provided your email addresses it may take a few days for them to be added to the system. Please contact us if you are still having trouble after a few days. Please note you don't need to be logged in to work on your code, only to submit.
Is this related to FIRST Robotics? They share some similarities but are different programs. If you would like to be involved with FIRST Robotics The University of Sydney has a team.
How do I sign up! Applications will open in March 2019.
Contact Us
- General Enquiries: [email protected].
- Media Enquiries: [email protected].