A university from the southern province of Dong Nai will represent Vietnam at an international robot contest in Thailand this September.

 

Lac Hong University’s LH-B7 team won the honor of representing the country after beating seven other teams in the finals of the Robocon contest in the central city of Da Nang Sunday.

 

A team from the same university had won the contest last year, and later taken the second prize at an international contest, held by the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union, in Cairo.

 

This year, the annual contest is themed on the traditional Loy Krathong ceremony observed in Thailand, honoring the Goddess of the river. It challenges competitors, each with three robots, to pick up joss sticks, flowers and petals and place them on a candle base which will be dropped on a “river” – a wooden platform. They are also asked to light up a candle on a small boat called “krathong” on the “river.”

 

The team that can complete the task first within three minutes will be the winner.

 

Since the contest was initiated in Japan in 2002, Vietnamese entrants have made it to five out of seven finals and won the first prize three times – in 2002, 2004 and 2006.