Students build self-driving car

Three students from Pakuranga College have driven to victory in a category at Robocup Junior Competition with their self-driving car.

Year 10 students William Leader, Devaansh Gupta, and David Torman formed their own working group with the intention of entering the Robocup Junior Online Competition 2022.

They combined their respective talents in the fields of electronics (Devaansh), programming (William), and 3D modelling (David) to create, from scratch, a self-driving car.

The trio ordered the battery, circuitry and ultra-sonic sensors from Ali Express and got to work in their spare time during term two.

The finished result was a model-sized car that can drive itself without external input from an operator.

The car is programmed to drive in a forward motion and using its ultra-sonic sensors (on the front, rear, and sides) it can sense obstacles and alter its course to avoid them.

After constructing the car and many tests, the group then set up an obstacle course and filmed the car completing it, altering its course as needed.

A five-minute video covering the car-building journey and result was submitted as an entry in the Robocup Junior Online Competition.

The team beat 12 other entries from around New Zealand to win the Self-Driving Car category.

“You showed impressive detail in terms of how you developed your car and why you made your decisions,” the judges said.

“The addition of future planning and what you would like to do better was excellent.”

Devaansh won the same category last year with a solo entry the team improved upon.

For the future, Devaansh and William want to explore engineering and David would like to get into the field of design and programming.