Recently, the 2025 China Robot Competition and RoboCup World Cup China concluded in Shijiazhuang. Zhang Jiawei, a five-year student majoring in Intelligent Electromechanical Technology, and Xu Zhuxin, a three-year student majoring in Industrial Robot Technology, from our Intelligent Manufacturing Department, performed excellently in the table tennis robot competition, winning the second prize in the national finals due to their solid professional foundation and stable on-site performance.
The China Robot Competition and RoboCup World Cup China is a whitelist event recognized by the Ministry of Education and is organized by the China Automation Society. Since its inception in 1999, it has successfully held 26 sessions. In May 2025, the China Higher Education Association released the “Robot Competition Index for College Students”, and this event was rated as the only five-star event. This year’s competition attracted over 1,700 teams from more than 300 universities, including Tsinghua University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, National University of Defense Technology, and Harbin Engineering University.
The table tennis robot competition, as an important component of this event, focuses on the full-chain technical capabilities of robots in “perception, decision-making, and execution”, integrating knowledge from multiple disciplines such as robotics engineering, artificial intelligence, mechanical and electronic engineering, and computer science and technology. The finals included three segments: static ball hitting, dynamic ball hitting, and ball hitting confrontation, and for the first time introduced a scoring sandbox system to comprehensively assess the participating teams’ capabilities in mechanical arm structure design, motion control, real-time interaction, visual perception, and trajectory prediction algorithms, as well as their path planning accuracy and strategic prediction levels in multi-round confrontations.
Our school’s table tennis robot competition preparations began in May 2025, with the list of advancing teams announced on July 15, where the top 25% of teams stood out and qualified for the “special competition”. On August 15, two elite teams from our school went to Yantai, Shandong, to participate in the special competition, performing excellently and winning second and third prizes. One of the teams successfully advanced to the national finals with a top 50% performance in the special competition. During the preparation period, participating students made full use of their spare time, evenings, and the entire summer vacation to engage in high-intensity training, continuously debugging programs, optimizing structures, and simulating confrontations, often experimenting late into the night to optimize a parameter or improve response time by a second. During the competition, our students remained calm, using the table tennis match as a task scenario, achieving perception of the table tennis and environment through autonomous robot control, completing offensive, confrontational, and defensive decision-making and execution tasks, demonstrating solid capabilities in trajectory prediction, motion planning, and the application of artificial intelligence technology. Ultimately, they won the second prize in the national finals, setting a new historical best for our school in this event.
The outstanding results are inseparable from the full support of the department, the hard work and continuous efforts of the students, and the dedicated guidance and professional leadership of the instructors. Teachers Zhang Xingxing and Wu Xiaoxue have been involved in technical guidance and training organization since the project started, dedicating a lot of effort from mechanical structure optimization, algorithm debugging to practical simulations. They not only provide professional technical support to students but also offer ample care in psychological adjustment and team collaboration, helping students maintain a good state during high-intensity competitions and demonstrating excellent comprehensive qualities and competitive levels.
The leap from school competitions to national competitions has achieved a new height of deep integration between schools and enterprises, and has also demonstrated the “Minzhi Model” for cultivating high-skilled talents in the Intelligent Manufacturing Department. The JAKA robotic arm was brought into the arena by JAKA Robotics, achieving real-time feedback of hitting data and industrial applications; Minzhi College extended the classroom to the table, allowing students to transform trajectory prediction algorithms into production line rhythms. While competitions have winners and losers, the “ball” of school-enterprise collaboration continues to spin rapidly: with talent in one hand and industry in the other, the landing point is at the center of Minzhi College’s innovative table.
This competition result not only fully affirms the achievements of our department’s professional construction but also lays a new starting point for the future development of Minzhi College. The college will continue to promote the transformation of competition experience into teaching resources, strengthen the professional capability building of teachers and students, comprehensively enhance vocational quality, and actively create a good atmosphere of “learning skills, practicing skills, competing in skills, and applying skills”, providing strong support for the construction of high-level professional groups in Intelligent Electromechanical Technology, and making greater contributions to cultivating high-quality technical and skilled talents that meet the needs of the new era of industrial development.
Contributed by: Intelligent Manufacturing DepartmentEdited by: Shen JieReviewed by: Dai Zenghui