Robotic sumo wrestler, school of the future and new technologies

More than 200 young fans of robotics and innovation gathered together on April 21 in Kyiv Sports Palace for the Fifth All-Ukrainian Festival of Robotics Robotica-2013. The participants of the festival were children from three to 19 – the total of 100 teams. According to the organizers of the event, it was a festival of creativity, intelligence, and high technology.

The program was intense. The central event of the festival was the qualifying rounds for the World Competitions – FIRST LEGO League (FLL) and World Robot Olympiad (WRO). Teams prepared for participating in this competition in advance in schools or special groups. Forty five boys and girls won various awards. The purpose of such competitions is to support children’s fascination with schience and technology, to develop creativity and ability to solve problems of different levels of complexity by using robots.

Equally interesting item on the program was children’s architectural competition “School of the Future.” Participants – 175 students from Ukrainian schools and other educational institutions in Ukraine, designed and made using building sets their versions of ideal modern school. People could vote for the projects on contest pages on Facebook and VKontakte.

During the festival children could learn about Google’s technology in robotics and communication. They saw the presentation of a new robot assembled from LEGO of the third generation EV3 on platform Mindstorms.

Among the events that caused the greatest interest in visitors and participants of the festival was a tournament of robotic sumo wrestlers. Anyone, regardless of age, with a robot could participate in the tournament.

“At the festival our team found like-minded people, acquired additional experience, which, with no doubt, will be useful in implementing the next steps in development of robotics by talented students from Ukrainian schools,” wrote the team of students from Kyiv school No.52 on the website of their school – one of 100 teams that met on April 21 in the Sports Palace.

The festival took place under the auspices of the Minor Academy of Sciences.