Written by: DENG Dekuan, JI Xing
Translated by: YU Shuangshuang
Edited by: William Mosteller
Date: 12-1
On November 30, the 2019 Curling Artificial Intelligence Challenge was held at HIT. At the opening ceremony, Professor WANG Zicai, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, announced the kick off. DUAN Guangren, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, started the game, while SHEN Yi, assistant president, delivered speeches for the challenge.
The intelligent curling robot independently designed and developed by the Department of Control Science and Engineering of HIT was launched at the opening ceremony. It is reported that this robot was developed on the basis of the latest artificial intelligence and robot technology, and will be unveiled at the Robot Curling Artificial Intelligence Challenge to be held during the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. At that time, HIT will also organize man-machine competitions between intelligent curling robots and professional athletes.
Combining curling, robots, and artificial intelligence together, the Curling Artificial Intelligence Challenge aimed to promote the development of artificial intelligence technology in colleges and universities through scientific and technological competitions, and to cultivate the capability of the usage and innovation of artificial intelligence technology among college students. This challenge was an innovation in scientific and technological competitions amongst colleges and universities. Eighteen teams from eleven universities in the E9 and G7 took part in this challenge. Contestant ZHU Kun said: “For us, this challenge is actually an extension of in-class learning, a test of our autonomous learning ability, and a good opportunity to cultivate our innovative consciousness."
This challenge was sponsored by HIT, jointly held by the School of Astronautics and the Institute of Artificial Intelligence, and technically supported by the HIT-NVIDIA Joint Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence and Control. The challenge included four games: the Digital Curling Artificial Intelligence Challenge, the Robot Table Curling Artificial Intelligence Challenge, the Robot Land Curling Artificial Intelligence Challenge, and the Robot Curling Artificial Intelligence Challenge. Only the Robot Table Curling Challenge was open in this competition.
