A WARWICK University student from Tavistock is part of a team of engineering students building a robot to search for survivors in disaster zones.

Final year engineering students, including former Tavistock College pupil Julian Faulkner, are developing the robot to compete as the only UK entry against other universities from across the world in an international competition — the European Robocup Rescue — that test robots' search and rescue abilities in a simulated disaster environment.

The competition will be held in Hanover next year and the students, who call themselves Warwick Mobile Robotics, are hoping to win best in class for mobility. They will also be exploring how the technology they develop can be used in a real-life situation.

Julian Faulkner is one of the four mechanical engineers, the rest of the team being two electronic engineers and two systems engineers. The project forms part of the final year of the MEng course at the university.

Julian said the challenge presented some exciting opportunities for a range of organisations and businesses to use and support the technology they were developing. The students have to raise £20,000 through sponsorship to pay for all the hardware and software and anyone interested in sponsoring them should ring 02476 574306 or email [email protected]">[email protected]

Professor Ken Young, in charge of the robotics project, said they were a very talented team of engineers and he was sure they would do well.

Julian said he had found the task 'daunting' and was 'pretty scared' at the beginning as there was a lot of electronics-based work, which was not his strong point. 'But everything seems to be fitting into place now,' he said.

Julian added that they hoped to win the European leg of the competition and go into the world finals.