Uva Wellassa University’s “Mechabot” wins Robofest - 2011

Uva Wellassa University (UWU) the youngest national university in Sri Lanka won the Robofest 2011 robotic competition in undergraduate category recently which was held at the Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology, Malabe campus.

This is the first outside university event that Uva Wellassa University participated in Robotics. Third year students Bhanu Watawana a product of Mahinda College, Galle and H. Dhanushka Lakmal a product of Sripalee Central College, Horana following science and technology degree programme specializing in Mechatronics won the competition with their robot ‘Mechabot’. ‘Mechabot’ won the final round with a recorded time of 30 seconds beating 15 other finalists from Moratuwa University (Silver), Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology - (SLIIT) (Bronze), Open University of Sri Lanka, University of Ruhuna and University of Peradeniya. Fifteen finalists were chosen from the first round out of 89 participants which is considered as the highest number of participants in a robotic competition in Sri Lanka.

Mechatronics, is an emerging field in engineering which combines mechanical engineering, electronic engineering and computer science. UWU offers Mechatronics specialization area under the four-year special degree programme on science and technology. Mechatronics is a vast field ranging from wrist watches to highly advance embedded systems. These graduates are of great demand by the industrial automation sector of Sri Lanka.

UWU with the vision of ‘becoming the renowned centre of excellence for value addition to the Sri Lankan resources base by the year 2015’ established in 2005 has shown a rapid growth during previous years and is now emerging as a force to reckon within the higher education of Sri Lanka.

Bhanu, the team leader said; “UWU family is now blooming with colours of its own. We are proud to become a part of it. Our lecturer panel and the team mechatronics helped us a lot to make this achievement. My father Jaliya Watawana has always been the force behind me. I believe this marks just the beginning of UWU’s strength in the field of Mechatronics”.

Lakmal also expressed his gratitude “I would like to thank S K Kalubovila who was my electronics teacher in school. It’s his guidance which brought me so far. Also I would like to thank our lecturers”.

Lecturer in-charge Lasitha Piyathilaka said “It is only three years since we have started Mechatronics specializing programme at Uva Wellassa University and currently we have only 21 students in two batches. All of the students graduated so far from our degree programme are now working in reputed organizations in Sri Lanka and abroad. For last two years we had the UWU robotics competitions and this is the first time we participated in an outside robotic competition.

I’m really delighted over the students’ achievements in the Robofest competition. It shows the commitment and skills of our undergraduates who are thriving to be the future leaders in Sri Lanka. Honours are due to our former Vice Chancellor Chandra Embuldeniya and present Vice Chancellor Prof Ranjith Premalal De Silva for their enduring support and guidance.” Mechatronics robotic team’s next target is to win the IESL robot competition which is organized by Institute of Engineers Sri Lanka in October and represent Sri Lanka in international robotic competitions.