The contest will take place from 19 to 22 July 2015 in the Chinese city of Hefei. Pupils from the P. Jilemnického Elementary School in Zvolen secured their place in the world championship after winning in the national round of the RoboCup competition. They will compete in the Rescue category.
The task in the Rescue categories is to build a robot that is fully autonomous and which must pass through a labyrinth along a marked trail, avoid obstacles, overcome gradients, get out of junctions and identify and take the “accident victim” to the evacuation zone. This is to be done while collecting as many points as possible for dealing with the course, the bridge, coping with a break in the trail, overcoming obstacles and finding the victim.
PosAm is the exclusive partner of the Slovak team. “We quickly found a common language with PosAm. Getting support from a company that has the philosophy of useful technologies was important for us. We are also trying to ensure that the education we are giving pupils is useful. For their development, their career and their surroundings,” said Ľuboslava Bieliková, Director of the Elementary School.
“The story of the boys from Zvolen is very close to us. They simply don’t give in and keep trying to find newer and newer solutions to problems. This philosophy is very akin to our own philosophy here in PosAm. We are keeping our fingers crossed for the boys,” said PosAm marketing director René Kubiš.
The RoboGen team from Zvolen
The RoboGen team is led by informatics teacher Maroš Hudík. The team members are Martin Katriňák (8c), Dominik Radler (8c), Andrej Slovák (8c), Matúš Garaj (6c) and Tomáš Hitka (5c). The boys chose the team name from their field of interest (robotics) and from the name of the special programme for gifted children APROGEN (Alternative Education Programme for Giftedness), of which they are part.
More about the RoboCup contest:
The tradition of the event started back in 1997. It was intended to promote robotics and progress in the development of artificial intelligence. The vision is that in future a team of fully autonomous humanoid robots – football players, will beat a real team of champions made of flesh and bone. In recent years, hundreds of teams from tens of countries from all over the world have taken part in the robotic championships. Even the youngest players are catered for as part of the event. In the junior categories of RoboCup Junior, which interestingly has no minimum age limit, the teams battle it out in three categories: Soccer, Dance and Rescue.
Additional information:
Official website of RoboCup 2015: http://www.robocup2015.org
Facebook page of RoboGen: https://www.facebook.com/robogen
Report of TV Hronka: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIBnnSnofnk