Robotic competitions : Short term pain for long term gain

In the last two decades many extracurricular robotics competitions have been established for university students, but there has been little academic research on whether they are beneficial or detrimental to their target audience. By focusing in-depth on one such competition, National Instruments Autonomous Robotics Competition (NIARC), this paper examines the student experience, academic performance changes and identifies other outcomes, that are influenced by robotic competitions. Although the results cannot be generalised to all students in all such competitions, the paper identifies important factors that need to be considered when deciding to promote these competitions to students. The student narrative shows that the competition has positively contributed to their studies, with a GPA analysis of Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) students suggesting improvements for team members in the long term.