The Siemens RoboRugby Autonomous Robot Design Competition was held on 23 April. Organised by UCD School of Electrical, Electronic and Communications Engineering, 21 teams competed for first, second and third place, as well as awards in the categories of Innovative Design and Best-Looking Robot. Preparations for the competition began with initial entries in January, followed by a qualifying round held on 10 April to determine tournament seedings. Robots were constructed from a standard kit and were controlled by on-board computers and sensors for navigation around the game table. First place was awarded to the team behind the robot How I Met Your Motor: Michael French, Shane Skelly and Dan Sullivan. Second and third spots were claimed by the teams behind the robots Lunatic Trials (Cillian Doyle, Stuart Gallagher, Jordan Mc Sharry) and Globorobo (Marcos Byrne, Brian Carolan, Cian Rushe). The teams behind WALL-E (Joe Bollard, Philip Corr, Niamh O Brien) was recognised in the Innovative Design category, and Ben 10 (Joan Mc Carthy, Sinead Nolan, Sean O Murchu) received the prize for Best-Looking Robot. In each RoboRugby match, two robots compete against each other on a playing table with 13 balls. The picture below shows the table layout used this year.  A robot scores points by moving balls into the scoring areas at the opposite end of the table, while trying to prevent the opposing robot from scoring points. Each match lasts for 60 seconds and the position of the balls at the end of the match determines the score.