Six members of the Irish Robotics Club are heading to Vienna at the end of the month to compete in Robot Challenge 2011. It's great for the club to continue representing Irish amateur robotics at international competitions. It's going to be great!

We are sending five robots (two more than last year) in five different categories :

• R. O'Bot - Linefollower
• An Droíd - Mini Sumo
• T4 Rover - Mega Sumo
• RPS - Freestyle
• Brice - Lego sumo

A massive thanks to T4.ie for their sponorship of our Mega Sumo and for their support of amateur robotics and technology focused education. There is lots of making, tweeking and testing to do in the coming weeks, so there will be some open making nights (likely held in the Science Gallery) over the next few weeks.

I'm delighted to announce that the Irish Robotics Club will be holding a linefollower competition on Saturday the 8th of January in the Radison hotel, Galway.
We will be gate crashing the Irish FIRST LEGO League Challenge finals so there will already be a fantastic setup already in place, big screen, MC, the works. Thanks to them and their sponsors SAP for allowing us to join in their great event.

As a club we have entered 2 competitions this year (Vienna, Wroclaw) , but this is the first competition we have run ourselves, so its very exciting and important step for the club. The rules of the line follower event are here. Line follower robots are perhaps the simplest competition robots you can build and there are plenty of resources on the internet to get you started. The competition is open to all, from beginners and robot ninjas.

If you are interested in entering please send your name (and the name of your robot) and contact details to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Entry is free

** EDIT - The super talented Dublin Based Sculptor Robosteel is kindly providing a trophy for the winner, a 30cm transformer made from recycled metal. Things just got interesting! :)

Should look something like this