Dortmund, Germany,
17 - 19 Nov 2022
The international final of the World Robot Olympiad summoned children and young people between the ages of 8 and 19 in Dortmund, Germany, from November 17 to 19, with the theme “My robot, my friend”.
It has been 3 arduous days in which the participants of the different categories and age ranges worked fine-tuning their robots, either to compete in the challenges or to prepare for the evaluations of the judges and to show the audience their proposals.
This year, the international final had the participation of 365 teams from 73 countries, each one made up of 2 or 3 participants, for a total of more than a thousand competitors, not counting their coaches, national representatives and special guests.
The ambient
The International Final was held in an authentic party atmosphere. Before the opening ceremony on the first day, the participants made a surprise visit to the Signal Iduna Stadium, home of Borussia Dortmund, which then continued at the Messe Dortmund facilities, the city's convention and fair center. After the opening ceremony, the flags of all the participating countries were presented and the competition began.
For the second day, the organizing team prepared a Friendship Night, with the theme of a Christmas Market, a very German tradition during this time of the year in Germany. The kids took the opportunity to enjoy the activities and games prepared for them, strengthening their friendship with the other delegations.
On the third day, the last scored tests for all categories and teams took place, to later lead to the closing event and the award ceremony.
Regarding the Award Ceremony, Elena Atanacio, from the ABC Bulldogs team and recipient, together with Jeannette Mejía, of the award for the best technical solution, shared the following with us:
“When I saw all the projects participating, I got a little worried and amazed. I couldn't even imagine how advanced some projects would be. Then, the 1st round of judges came and they were really "judgy" but I got the hang of it and got better with time at explaining to them my robot.
The last round of judges were really nice. We talked to people from a lot of different places from around the world.It was all a great adventure and a really great experience. I got to meet kids from all around the world.Then, it all came to an end, and we started to take down our stand and put our robot away to get ready to go home. We went to the auditorium where the award ceremony was going to take place and my category was the first. They turned in 8 awards and we were not in that list. Even Though I did not get a prize I was satisfied by our participation and about all of the things I saw and learned with this experience.Bit then, they were more special and more specific awards coming. And suddenly, i heard them say "mr. Bin" And I was like "whattt?!?!?! Is that us???" I couldn't believe it. They started talking about the technical solution award and that it was being granted to a team that had a "simple and yet efficient" solutionAnd we started walking towards the stage and we received an award. I was suuuper excited and couldn't believe it.”
Challenges and results
The challenges were divided for the first time into 4 categories, two related to solutions based on LEGO pieces and 2 new free categories, which allow the incorporation of other technological solutions.
Each category has 3 age groups: Elementary (8 - 12 years), Junior (11 - 15 years) and Senior (14 - 19 years).
The "Robo" categories compete with LEGO elements and parts and the "Future" categories with any element selected or manufactured by the competitors.
El Salvador participated with 3 teams: Robomission Elementary (Hikerbots, made up of Santiago Moreno and Diego Valencia), Robomission Senior (ABC Robotics club, made up of José Andrés Miguel, Marcos Narváez and Arturo Sánchez) and Future Innovators Junior (ABC Bulldogs, made up of Jeannette Mejía and Elena Atanacio).
The categories present at the event were:
Future innovators: Teams were tasked with building a model that represents the robot as a friend and helper in one of these topics: Robots at home, robots in rescue, and robots in healthcare. Various technical and presentation aspects of the solutions were evaluated, with the following teams being the winners:
Elementary: 1st place 2030 - KSA from Saudi Arabia, 2nd place THE REHAB TRIO from Malaysia, 3rd place Fantasy from Chinese Taipei.
Junior: 1st place Otemon Quest from Japan, 2nd place HK-UCCKE from Hong Kong, 3rd place DYCI Primes from the Philippines.
Senior: 1st place Robolectro Kinesist from India, 2nd place Robocores from Greece, 3rd place Platon Tech from Azerbaijan.
Special prizes were also awarded to those teams that demonstrated truly outstanding characteristics
and abilities in the following sections:
- LEGO Education Creativity Award - Katatronic Wildcats - Mexico
- Best Team Spirit (Elementary) - Triple Tech - South Africa
- Best Technical Solution (Junior) - ABC Bulldogs - El Salvador
- Best Team (All Ages) - AGSG - Portugal
Future engineers: The autonomous car challenge this time was a race against the clock with no other competitors on the track at the same time. Instead, each autonomous vehicle tried to set the fastest time around a circuit, complete with road signs and lanes that the vehicle must use.
Overall winners were: 1st place Firing on all cylinders from Chinese Taipei, 2nd place Team Spark from USA, and 3rd place Team Lazy-go from Bangladesh
Robomission: The traditional challenges of the past years, each team builds and programs a robot that accomplishes missions on a challenge board in which the robots must perform certain specific tasks, in a defined period of time and scoring points per task accomplished. The robots are completely autonomous and are not allowed to be controlled remotely. On this occasion, each age range has a different challenge: Elementary: the garden robot; Junior: the rescue robot; Senior: The care robot.
Elementary: 1st place Curious Robot from Chinese Taipei, 2nd place AREA5 from Hungary, 3rd place TC TEAM 1 from Malaysia.
Junior: 1st place Greenbots from India, 2nd place RoboTecnia Danonino from Mexico, 3rd place Robotic Boys from Germany.
Senior: 1st place ThaiHerbGood from Thailand, 2nd place RoboPark from Kazakhstan, 3rd place NERDVANA MENSA from Romania.
Robosports: Teams design two robots that compete against other teams' head-to-heads in a tag team tennis match. The winning team is the one that places the most balls in the opponent's field, following a knockout format until the winning team is obtained.
The overall winners were: 1st place PanyaRobot from Thailand, 2nd place UP UP CHM 10 from Malaysia and 3rd place CHAN-PON from Japan.
All categories have shown an extraordinary competitive and technological level, demonstrating not only effective, innovative and technically viable proposals, but also aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), within a specific budget.
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