Team NAIST-RITS-Panasonic took 1st place in the Convenience Store Stocking and Disposing task challenge in the WRS Future Convenience Store Challenge Trial Competition.

 Team NAIST-RITS-Panasonic, a team composed of members from NAIST, Ritsumeikan University and the Robotics HUB of Panasonic Corporation, placed first in the Convenience Store Stocking and Disposing task challenge of the WRS Future Convenience Store Challenge Trial Competition, held at Tokyo Big Sight on Dec. 19-21.

 The Future Convenience Store Challenge Trial Competition (FCSC 2019) was held as a preliminary competition event for the World Robot Summit, sponsored by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. In this competition, 10 teams from Japan and abroad gathered to use their cutting-edge technologies to compete in the 3 tasks of stocking and disposing, customer interaction, and restroom cleaning.

 Team NAIST-RITS-Panasonic performance in these task areas was:
 Restock and Disposal: 1st place
 Customer Interaction: 2nd place
 Restroom Cleaning: 2nd place

Member comments on the team's performance

Gustavo Garcia（Assistant Professor, GSIS Robotics Laboratory）

On behalf of Team NAIST-RITS-Panasonic, I am very happy to announce that we have obtained the 1st place in the Restock and Disposal, the 2nd place in the Restroom Cleaning and 2nd place in the Customer Interaction of the Future Convenience Store Challenge 2019 toward the World Robot Summit (WRS) 2020.
We are proud to have had the honor to represent two Japanese universities and a world-class company in this international robotics competition, as one of 10 contending teams. We would like to thank the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) for organizing such a successful event that brought us countless valuable experiences. Moreover, we would like to thank Ritsumeikan University, as well as Robotics Hub of the Panasonic Corporation for joining us in this amazing adventure, without their excellent contributions and active cooperation we could not have achieved this result. Finally, we would like to sincerely express our deepest gratitude to Professor Ogasawara and Associate Professor Takamatsu who are constantly guiding and supporting us.