Last Saturday (21st June), the University of Lincoln buzzed with innovation and excitement as LCASTOR hosted the inaugural East Midlands Home Robotics Competition. This fantastic new event brought together bright minds for a day of friendly rivalry and collaborative exploration in the dynamic field of assistive robotics.

Two teams took centre stage, showcasing their ingenuity and technical prowess:

SHUbotics (Sheffield Hallam University) impressed with their integration of IoT and robotics, building a system capable of engaging in conversation, detecting potential falls, and offering timely support in domestic settings. Their solution delivered a near-perfect performance, earning them 1st place.

Our very own LCASTOR (Lincoln Centre for Autonomous Systems (L-CAS)) challenged themselves with tasks from the official RoboCup Federation @Home league, including “Carry My Luggage” and “Storing Groceries”. Despite some tough networking issues and on-the-day code refactoring, the team showed great resilience and technical depth.

Beyond the competition, attendees enjoyed a showcase of robotics research and demonstrations:

• Embodied AI conversational agents
• Robot football matches
• Fruit detection for agri-tech.
• Quadruped robots
• Poster presentations

A huge thanks to everyone who supported these demonstrations. From setup to engaging presentations, your enthusiasm and dedication truly brought the day to life!

We extend our special gratitude to our esteemed judges, Liz Felton (University of Nottingham) and Alejandro Jiménez Rodríguez (Sheffield Hallam University) for their thoughtful evaluation and encouragement throughout the day.

This marks the successful inaugural edition of what we hope will become a recurring event for the East Midlands. Our ambition is to involve even more UK universities in the years to come, further fostering collaboration and growth within the assistive robotics field. Stay tuned for future editions – the future of home robotics is here!