A team of PhD students from the University of Limerick (UL) has secured a prestigious international victory, winning three major awards at the IEEE Region 8 Robot Championship 2024. The competition, held at the Montekristo Arena in Malta, brought together 12 university teams from across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, competing in a Robot Wars-style contest across multiple categories.
The BRIS Team—representing UL’s Centre for Robotics and Intelligent Systems (CRIS)—delivered a dominant performance, claiming:
🏆 Best Overall Award
🚀 Best Manoeuvrability
💪 Best Pushing Power
The team’s name, BRIS (a play on the Irish word for ‘break’), symbolized their intent to demolish the competition—and they did just that. After a series of intense matches, UL emerged victorious, overcoming two strong teams from the University of Malta in the semi-final and final.
The competition featured eight key challenges, testing the robots in areas such as teamwork, design, tactics, and effectiveness. The UL robot, expertly piloted by Marco Moreno, showcased technical excellence, agility, and raw power, earning well-deserved recognition. The BRIS team consisted of PhD students Marco Moreno, Ben Bartlett, and Tom Dorian, with mentorship from Matheus Santos and Petar Trslić of the School of Engineering and Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering.
The IEEE Region 8 Robot Championship is part of the world’s largest technical professional society, bringing together the brightest minds in robotics and engineering. The UL team, representing the UL IEEE Student Branch, demonstrated exceptional creativity, teamwork, and engineering prowess.
Want to see the action? Watch the full two-day competition here:
📅 Day 1: Watch here
📅 Day 2: Watch here
This remarkable victory wouldn’t have been possible without the support of Gerard Dooly, as well as contributions from Eoin O’Connell, Lubna Luxmi Dhirani, and the ECE Department. A big thank you also goes to the organizers, IEEE Region 8 (Europe, Middle East & Africa), and the University of Malta for hosting this fantastic event.
Congratulations once again to the BRIS team for making UL proud!
Link: Article at UL News.
