On November 9th, 2024, the final round event for the 5th Kibo Robot Programming Challenge (Kibo-RPC) was held. The 13 teams that won through their countries preliminary round competed to see who could operate NASA’s Astrobee drone robot inside the ISS using the programs they had created, aimed to achieve the highest accuracy in image recognition and complete their missions in the shortest time. As a result, the “Astronut” team from Thailand won the competition! This year’s event was held as a hybrid at the JAXA Tsukuba Space Center and online, with four teams taking part in the event at the Tsukuba Space Center. Australia’s own Team Dreamrover came in 8th place, a valiant effort for the team of high school students.
The event was also broadcast live on the JAXA channel on YouTube: