The finals of the 15th Robocompetition took place in the Zenger Auditorium of Faculty of Electrical Engineering on Charles Square and it was truly an extraordinary showcase of creativity and ingenuity of the new generation of young engineers. "The participation in the competition was record-breaking, out of 168 robots and their teams 147 arrived in the preliminary rounds and in today's final we saw 36 of the best. In addition, one robot, built by university students from our Cybernetics and Robotics programme, also took part in the competition," says the main organiser of the Robocompetition, Martin Hlinovský from the Department of Control Engineering at CTU FEL .
Historically Hardest Tower Challenge and the Winners
The Robocompetition finals always take place on two identical fileds placed side by side, where two robotic vehicles try to complete a task in the best possible way and collect points in the time allotted. The winner will eventually emerge from the elimination spider. This year's challenge was called Tower and the goal of the student teams was to build and program the robot to independently, without any other help, pick up as many coloured cubes as possible from the playground, place them inside a yellow rectangle and simultaneously build the tallest tower possible out of the cubes. "This was probably the most difficult task in the history of the competition to date and the design solutions we saw were simply incredible. The best robots were able to bravely build towers up to 16 cubes high," says Martin Hlinovský. After a dramatic battle, the following teams eventually stood on the podium:
Winner of the 15th Robocompetition
Team: SAKIRI
Members: Richard Kohel, Kirill Kilčickij, Samuel Moravčík
School: ISŠT Benešov secondary school of technology
2nd place
Team: Rossumovi univerzální roboti
Members: Jakub Sýkora, Adam Rott, Aleš Prandžev
School: Gymnázium Na Vítězné pláni, Praha 4 high school
3rd place
Team: Kachničky
Members: Pavel Škop, Klára Vondráčková, Ondřej Nepevný
School: Gymnázium Voděradská, Praha 10 high school
Winner of the Robot Design category
Team: Kachničky
Members: Pavel Škop, Klára Vondráčková, Ondřej Nepevný
School: Gymnázium Voděradská, Praha 10 high school
The winners will be admitted to CTU FEL without the need for entrance exams
Partners of this year's competition were MathWorks, Humusoft, Škoda Auto, Applifting, FANUC, Sick and Strand. In addition to the material prizes from these partners, the members of the first three teams in the Robocompetition receive one important reward - they can start their studies at CTU FEL without taking the entrance exam.
For more information about the final CTU FEL Robotics Competition for Secondary Schools, about the competing teams and the competition task and other details, please visit the website or Facebook. You can also watch a recording of the final on the Robocompetition's YouTube channel here.