NEWNHK Gakusei Robocon 2025– ABU Asia-Pacific Robot Contest Japan Representative Selection Tournament

Tokyo Electron (TEL) was once again proud to support the NHK Gakusei Robocon 2025 – ABU Asia-Pacific Robot Contest Japan Representative Selection Tournament.

The competition was held on June 8 at the Ota City General Gymnasium.
After making it through the preliminary screenings, student teams from all across Japan competed, displaying both their technical skills and originality as they designed and built robots to take on the tournament’s assigned challenges.

The winning team will go on to represent Japan at the ABU Asia-Pacific Robot Contest 2025, which is scheduled to take place in August 2025 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

The theme of this year’s competition was “Robot Basketball.”
Basketball is a popular sport in Mongolia, the host country for ABU Asia-Pacific Robot Contest 2025. Considered a national pastime, a large portion of the population enjoys playing the game. From professional games to more casual, local matches, people of all ages and genders enjoy the sport in a variety of different ways.

The year’s competition takes inspiration from the game of basketball. Teams of two robots play offense and defense, competing to score points. In addition to teamwork, technical skills, and strategy, mind games like clever operating techniques designed to trick opponents, and fake outs to break through the other team’s defense were some highlights of the competition.

Each university team’s unique robots won enthusiastic cheers from the crowd as they shot baskets from a variety of positions and blocked their opponents’ shots and dribbles.

This year’s Tokyo Electron Award was presented to the “T-semi” team from Tohoku University.

The team’s robot stood out for its defensive capabilities such as an inflatable bag that reduced the accuracy of its opponents’ shots and deflected the ball. Its design was inspired by a robot named “OR” developed by the Sendai National College of Technology Natori Campus that won both the 2011 championship and the Robocon Grand Prize at the KOSEN Robot Contest.

Although the team was narrowly defeated in the quarterfinals, they fought hard, losing by just two points to the eventual champion, the University of Tokyo, despite technical issues that caused the modified section of a robot to start emitting smoke, leaving a single robot to compete alone.

Comment from the winning team: Tohoku University T-semi
“This year’s competition marked the first Robocon experience for much of our team, so we’re absolutely thrilled to have had our teamwork pay off with such a great result. The competition also opened our eyes to a number of areas in which we could improve, and we’re ready to take them on, one at a time. Thank you so much for your continued support.”

TEL will continue to support a wide variety of “Roboconists” through its sponsorships of the KOSEN Robocon, NHK Gakusei Robocon, and ABU Asia-Pacific Robot Contest.