It's been full-on in Malaysia at Shell Eco-Marathon Asia. The most exciting thing has been tracking our Australian entrant, Girton Grammar Team Incharge, as they navigate their way through the competition.

(click here or on the image above for a video summary of Day 1) 

(click here or on the image above for a video summary of Day 2) 

Our Aussie team began their journey auspiciously, making it through immigration at Melbourne Airport 20 minutes before the immigration computer system shut down, causing massive queues and chaos for everyone else trying to travel!  

They nearly didn’t make it through though − one of the students, James, had never travelled internationally before, so he didn’t know he was meant to look up to the camera after getting his passport scanned, which the rest of the team found hilarious!

The team arrived in Kuala Lumpur late on Sunday night, 28 April, the day before the competition began, and arrived at the hotel at 1am on Monday 29 April, the day of competition.

Running on adrenaline, the team got to work early, assembling the car and putting in the electronics. The tests were running well, and everyone was relaxed and confident, until suddenly, the wheels of their car stopped turning! The next couple of hours were slightly frantic, with the students running around trying to diagnose the issue. After filming our Day 1 video with the team, they figured out the issue: some wires had become loose and the emergency stop button’s terminals weren’t connected properly - so there was no power going into any of the circuits.

Our Australian team was one of the select few fortunate to be invited to parade their car at the opening ceremony. It was great to see them walk proudly with their car in front of 18 countries and 108 teams, representing Australia under the scorching Malaysian sun.

Tuesday brought the technical inspections. The team was confident going in, but the technical inspectors were tough and weren’t letting them off easily.

The technical director was concerned about whether the Girton team’s drivers had enough experience in the vehicle.  The Incharge drivers had a lot of experience in other similar vehicles, and have raced in other competitions, but the technical director wanted to further assess their driving ability before letting them compete.

An interesting test was to see if the drivers could jump out of the car in less than 10 seconds, in case there was a fire. Incharge drivers managed 9.36 and 8.72 seconds, just under the threshold. Phew!

All up, the team spent over 3.5 hours in tech inspections, tying up cables and affixing them out of the way to ensure the car was as safe as possible.

Finally, Team Incharge passed technical inspection, allowing them to drive on the iconic Sepang International Circuit!

Even though the car was now certified track-legal, the technical director still wanted to make sure the team knew how to drive.  So the Girton drivers had to do two laps of the track successfully to show the director they could handle the track and car.

Incharge driver Emma got in the car to show her stuff. We watched as the beautiful Girton vehicle glided along the track. But then the display screen shut off and Emma was forced to drive the vehicle off the track. She didn’t even complete one lap − something had gone wrong!

Turns out the display board wire came out and Emma couldn’t see any updates, so she decided to stop to check it out, to make sure everything was functioning properly.

With the display wire securely plugged in, Emma tried again, successfully doing two laps of the track to show the technical director that the team was ready to compete.

Each car goes around the track four times to make a run. Each team is given eight attempts to lodge their best distance travelled per energy unit. The winner is the team with the most energy-efficient car in the division.

Girton Grammar Team Incharge had their first run that Tuesday afternoon. Four laps of the track, using the least amount of energy they could.

Incharge went around once, twice, three times. Up the hill, down the hill. The finish line was in sight. Just one more bend…and then…nothing. With the finish line in sight, Girton’s vehicle stopped on the home stretch. Oh no!

So that’s one attempt down but nothing on the scoreboard yet. Only eight out of the 22 teams in their division managed to complete their first run attempt.

With two days of competition to go, let’s see how Girton manages to fight back and prove their mettle!

Ask yourself:

1.  What do I want to learn?

2. What do I already know?

Then:

3.  Devise a project you’re interested in that involves others

- Create a community

- Have a clear common aim

- Work towards external deadlines

1. What do I want to learn?

Figure out what you want to learn or the challenge or goal you want to conquer.

When I was in my second year at university, I had never built a robot from scratch before. I’d done soldering, built electronic crickets from kits, soldered together a multimeter, put together various toy cars, and built a whole bunch of stuff with LEGO robots − but I’d never built my own robot from scratch! So I decided that I was going to build a simple robot to roll around the room by itself with my friends. We called the team “mew”, after our names.

2. What do I already know?

Learning something new is hard. So you want to make sure there aren’t too many obstacles between you and success. It’s good to be aware of your strengths and weaknesses so you can ask for help when you need it and ensure the project’s success.

My friends and I didn’t know much about building robots, so we breadboarded some motors and LEDs, but we didn’t achieve our objective. I then got busy building Robogals and studying in London. I next decided to build a word clock, which tells the time using words rather than digits. There weren’t as many tutorials on word clocks back then, so I asked my housemate Luke, an enthusiastic electronics hacker, to help guide me through the process. I bought a whole bunch of components from the electronics markets to make my own circuit boards.

3. Devise a project you’re interested in that involves others

− Create a community

Doing things by yourself is lonely. Getting other people on board creates energy around the project and makes it more exciting. It’s nice to bounce ideas off other people, brainstorm and refine ideas to come to the optimal solution, while making friends. To ensure your project gets completed, create a community around it. That might be just one person, your best friend who is curious or the local hacking community you find at Hackerspace.

I didn’t have much time to work on my word clock, before getting busy with university. Thankfully, we finally started doing some hands-on robot building in my mechatronics engineering and computer science course. We were going to compete in the Warman Challenge, where you build two devices − one completely mechanical, and one electro-mechanical − to complete a task. It was a group project, so I worked with a few classmates, and we finished the university assignment!

− Have a clear common aim

Be clear about what you want to achieve. Talk to as many people as possible about your idea. Refine it as much as possible. Then agree on the scope of the project with your team.

A month later, my friend forwarded me an email about ABC’s New Inventors, a tv show that showcases Australian inventions and innovations. The producers were filming a “Robot Special” episode. They were looking for sumo robots to compete against different universities around Australia. I quickly emailed back, putting my hand up to enter a team with Luke.

− Work towards external deadlines

By having an external deadline, the project gets done. This way, it’s not just the team holding you to account to complete the project, but other people in the wider community as well. This causes you to step up and deliver.

Less than two months later, I was a panellist on the ABC’s New Inventors and our robot competed and tied for third place. If we didn’t have the hard deadline of the filming date, we wouldn’t have completed our sumo robot.

With the hardware skills gained from working on these projects, I had the confidence to build more robots and then start my own robotics company, aubot, making telepresence robots for people to go to school or work remotely.

Competitions like Shell Eco-Marathon enable you to learn valuable hands-on skills, create a community for you to work with towards a clear common aim and give you an external deadline so the project gets completed. When people ask me how they can learn these kinds of valuable skills − technical, project management, teamwork, leadership, etc − I tell them to look for competitions like Shell Eco-Marathon.

I’m very excited to announce that I have been named the 2019 Shell Eco-Marathon Ambassador for Australia.

The concept of the Shell Eco-Marathon stems from a friendly bet between two scientists at Shell in 1939. How far could a vehicle travel on a gallon of fuel?

They shook on the bet and set about stretching the limits. By 1985, Shell Eco-marathon became a student competition. Now, 52 countries, more than 700 teams and 6000 students are participating in the Shell Eco-marathon across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific.

I like the competition because it’s not about building a fast car − it’s focused on minimising the car’s environmental impact.

A great way to learn is to create a project and work with other people to achieve a common aim under the pressure of a deadline. The other people help keep you motivated so that you feel a sense of responsibility beyond yourself. The common aim directs what you’re working towards. And the deadline pressure means that the project has to move along at a snappy pace to be completed. Shell Eco-Marathon ticks these boxes: the project is to create the car; you’re working in a team; the aim is to create an efficient, eco-friendly vehicle; and the deadline is the competition dates.

You can learn so much through participating in a competition like this: coming up with the requirements, brainstorming designs, and building a car and the electronics. It’s not just applying the science theories you learn in the classroom. It’s building something with your hands, problem solving, working in a team, and knowing yourself as someone who can make things happen. These are the same skills we use every day in my robotics company, aubot, where we make robots for people to go to school and work remotely! Competitions like Shell Eco-Marathon set you up for the real world, giving you the technical skills and confidence to make stuff happen.

The competition is open to secondary school and university students.

A secondary school in the regional Victorian town of Bendigo, Girton Grammar School, heard about the competition and decided to enter.

The young team worked hard and built an electric car, managing an impressive 6th place finish in their Mileage Challenge category!

Encouraged by their experience, Girton’s Team Incharge has once again put their hand up to participate in Shell Eco-Marathon as the sole team representing Australia in this year’s Asia Pacific finals in Malaysia.  This year, Shell Eco-Marathon Asia has 100 student teams representing 18 countries!

A month ago, the Girton Grammar team packed their car in Bendigo and sent it to Malaysia. Today, Shell Eco-Marathon Asia began.

Girton Grammar has two days for tech checks and to make any final changes to their car, including electronics integration and testing. Then it’s competition time!

Over the next two days, the Girton Grammar students will get to compete and test their hard work against hundreds of other students in the region.

As the Shell Eco-Marathon Ambassador for Australia, I was invited to go along to Malaysia with the Girton Grammar team to report on their progress, as well as find out about and report on the other teams and what they’ve brought to the table.

I can't wait to be part of the action and give you more updates about Shell Eco-Marathon Asia throughout the week!  Go Australia!  Go Girton team Incharge!

I was pretty chuffed and surprised to learn that I was named a top 50 women in tech globally by Forbes magazine!  OMG!

See the full list here.  And my article here.

The team created some new Aubot prototypes for some different kinds of robots.  I took them to CES to show them off.  Here I am with the robot prototypes in front of the CES sign.