Pupils of the 2nd cycle of elementary school and the corresponding years of multi-year high schools compete in teams of three. Their task is to build a robot from the LEGO Education Mindstorms kit and program it to perform the task as efficiently as possible. The teams will compete in three independent rounds: on Wednesday 24 April, Thursday 25 April and Friday 26 April in the Zenger Auditorium at Faculty of Electrical Engineering.
This year's task is called Sorting coloured cubes. And as it suggests, the teams' task is to build and program a robot to independently pick up as many coloured cubes as possible from the competition area and sort them into the available bins on the playground. And they have to do it all in 90 seconds, which is the maximum time for traversing the course. For easier orientation, there will be black guide lines on the course.
"The biggest challenge with this particular task is figuring out a strategy to get the most points in 90 seconds and then applying it to the robot. The difficulty of the task will only become apparent after the rounds are over. We are eager to be surprised what the teams will come up with and what kind of robots they will devise to compete," said Dr. Martin Hlinovský, the organiser of the Robo Competition, from the Department of Control Engineering at CTU FEL.
Before the competition starts, the pupils will have the opportunity to try out the competiion field and test how their robot performs. The rounds are organized as a duel between two robots on one field. The winner is decided by the number of points scored. Points are awarded for placing coloured cubes in the horizontal and vertical stack. More points are scored if the cubes are arranged according to colour. The maximum number of points a robot can score is 168.
Up to 50 teams will participate in each independent round. The top four teams from each round will then advance to compete in a grand superfinal. This will take place on 12 May as part of the Maker Faire Prague festival. In addition to a ticket to the superfinal, the students will win valuable prizes.
Robocompetition is a traditional and already very popular event for young enthusiasts in robotics. The ompetition is held for students of the second grade of primary schools and the corresponding years of multi-year high schools in the spring. In the autumn, high school pupils who win the Robocompetition are granted admission to CTU FEL without entrance exams.
Last year, pupils of primary schools and the corresponding years of multi-year grammar schools had the task of assembling and programming a robot to autonomously move and sort as many coloured ping pong balls as possible within a time limit of 90 seconds.
Photos from last year's Robocompetition can be found HERE. Petr Neugebauer from CTU FEL is the author.