Manila: The Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) announced on Thursday that a group of students from the Batangas State University (BatStateU) placed third in the international Kibo Robot Programming Challenge (Kibo-RPC).
According to Philippines News Agency, the team, called Inflection Point, commanded NASA's Astrobee robot aboard the Japanese Kibo module of the International Space Station (ISS) with their own program, competing against teams all over the world in image recognition accuracy and mission speed. A total of 738 teams from over 30 countries joined this year's Kibo-RPC.
Inflection Point's win marks another achievement for the Philippines, following its successful debut into the Kibo-RPC last 2024 where the same team secured second place and became the first-ever Philippine team to join and win at the Kibo-RPC. The team is composed of third-year aerospace engineering students Howell Dela Cruz, John Royeth Samson, Ahron Martinez, Benedict Lontok, Andrew Cabile, and Amer Panganiban.
They successfully completed four out of five tasks during the live test run, earning a total score of 216.8 out of 300 points. Meanwhile, PhilSA said Kibo-RPC's final round was held in orbit aboard the ISS last Feb. 28.
Kibo-RPC is open to student teams across the Asia-Pacific Region, aiming to train the next generation in programming robots in space for precise and swift operation, testing their teamwork and skill in predicting motion under microgravity conditions, PhilSA said.
