Analysis and Observations from the First Amazon Picking Challenge

This paper presents a overview of the inaugural Amazon Picking Challenge along with a summary of a survey conducted among the 26 participating teams. The challenge goal was to design an autonomous robot to pick items from a warehouse shelf. This task is currently performed by human workers, and there is hope that robots can someday help increase efficiency and throughput while lowering cost. We report on a 28-question survey posed to the teams to learn about each team's background, mechanism design, perception apparatus, planning and control approach. We identify trends in this data, correlate it with each team's success in the competition, and discuss observations and lessons learned based on survey results and the authors' personal experiences during the challenge

Robotics competitions in engineering eduction

Internationally engineering education has had to become more pro-active in attracting students with the technical knowledge, skills and motivation enabling them to excel in four or more years of study with the ultimate goal of addressing the ever-growing demand for qualified engineers from the industry. General public perceptions that engineering is a difficult career field while offering inadequate financial rewards as compared to alternative fields have resulted in significant reduction in student numbers, particularly among high quality students across all the engineering, sciences and technical disciplines. This paper presents the experience of using robotic competition events to motivate school students and help them appreciate what is involved in an engineering design and development fields