A team of Filipino students is set to make history as the first-ever Philippine representatives to participate in the Kibo Robot Programming Challenge (Kibo-RPC). The team, Inflection Point from Batangas State University (BatStateU), will compete against international counterparts to program a robot for deployment on the International Space Station (ISS).
Hosted by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Kibo-RPC challenges young minds to develop programming skills for space robots. The BatStateU students impressed judges with their program, securing the highest average score among Philippine entries during a simulation conducted by the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA).
“Upon seeing this competition, we immediately joined without knowing much, thinking that we will obtain knowledge and experience along the way. We weren’t expecting that our curiosity and desire to learn would enable us to dive deep through this competition and dedicate ourselves to obtaining the best results, leading to the win that none of us would see coming a few months back. Expect us to do what we can in the final round as we dare mighty things,” shared the team.
The winning team will advance to the final round, where their program will be executed on the ISS later this year. PhilSA spearheaded the local competition, receiving 29 applications nationwide and selecting seven teams for the simulation phase.
The Kibo-RPC is part of the Asian Beneficial Collaboration through Kibo Utilization (Kibo-ABC) program, which aims to promote the use of the Japanese Experiment Module “Kibo” on the ISS and enhance space education in participating countries.