The 4th Kibo Robot Programming Challenge Team Applications Results

Experiment at Kibo
Kibo Utilization Office for Asia (KUOA)

The call for participation in the 4th Kibo Robot Programming Challenge (Kibo-RPC ^※1) hosted by JAXA has now closed.

Participating Team Submission Result

A total of 12 countries/regions/organizations (Table 1) from Kibo-ABC^※2 member countries/regions, the United States, and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), participated in this year's competition, with a record number of 421 teams and 1685 applicants. We thank you very much for the large number of applications.

This year, students from UN member countries had the opportunity to participate through the UNOOSA international slot, created in collaboration with UNOOSA. The objective is to expand the Kibo-RPC worldwide, in response to requests from outside Kibo-RPC participating countries/regions. Through this framework, students from 19 countries have participated in the competition in addition to Kibo-RPC participating countries/regions (Table 2).

Table 1. Participation from Kibo-ABC member countries/regions, the United States and UNOOSA (in alphabetical order)

Country/Region	Number of Teams
Australia	3
Bangladesh	74
Japan	27
Malaysia	12
Nepal	1
Singapore	6
Taiwan	29
Thailand	182
UAE	8
Vietnam	1
United States of America	28
UNOOSA	50
TOTAL	421

Table 2. Number of participating teams by country by UNOOSA international slot (Alphabetical order)

Country/Region		Number of participants
Asian region	India	1
	Indonesia	5
	Pakistan	3
	Philippines	5
African region	Benin	1
	Egypt	2
	Eritrea	1
	Ghana	1
	Kenya	7
	Madagascar	1
	Namibia	1
	Nigeria	3
	Tunisia	4
	Tanzania	3
South America region	Bolivia	1
	Colombia	1
	Costa Rica	5
	Honduras	1
	Mexico	4

Figure 1. Age distribution of participants (total)

The Preliminary Round and the Final Round

Participating teams will work together to create a program called Android Application Package (APK) to control Astrobee, in participation in the Preliminary Round held in their respective countries/regions/organizations. Astrobee is NASA's onboard drone on the International Space Station (ISS). Submission of APKs will close on June 25, and the Preliminary Rounds will be held from June 26 to July 9. The winning teams will go to the Final Round, which will be held on the ISS in September.

Schedule

May 28, 2023: Application deadline
June 25, 2023: APK submission deadline
June 26 to July 9, 2023: Preliminary Rounds for each country/region/organization (utilizing JAXA's simulation environment)
September 2023: The Final Round (in the Kibo module of the ISS, utilizing the actual Astrobee robot)

Official Website

The 4th Kibo-RPC Official Website

*1 Kibo-RPC
Kibo-RPC is a collaboration of JAXA and NASA based on Japan-U.S. cooperation through the Japan-U.S. Open Platform Partnership Program (JP-US OP3) to promote Kibo utilization in the Asia-Pacific region and to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Through these activities, the program provides educational opportunities for students in the area to learn about robot operation and computer programming in space.

*2 Kibo-ABC
Kibo-ABC is an initiative within the Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum (APRSAF) to promote space environment utilization in the region. This competition is one of the activities of the APRSAF, and participants must submit an application form to the space agency or designated organization of their countries/regions.

Kibo

Experiment at Kibo

KUOA

Kibo Utilization Office for Asia

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