Students of Elabuga Institute of KFU returned from the International Robotics Olympiad which was held in India.
Mathematics and Natural Sciences Faculty’s students Vladislav Starostin, Azat Nasibullin and Islam Khamitov performed at competitions. They won All-Russian Olympiad, which was held in Innopolis (Kazan) in June. It gave them the right to participate in the International Olympiad Robotics (World Robot Olympiad, WRO) held recently in New Delhi (India). After returning the students shared their impressions of the trip:
Team’s member Vladislav Starostin says: "We started to prepare for the Olympiads in India in August. Immediately becoming the part of the Russian national team, we decided to modify the old model. The robot was controlled by the controller EV3 Lego. Also the components of Tetrix and Matrix were used. The big advantage for us was using the video camera, which served as "machine vision" for the robot. The robot was moving, droving to the balls and grabbing one of the balls and threw in the pins, knocking them down. Due to this upgrade we were in the final.
During four months we were making a good set of statistics of hits on the pins, simultaneously preparing all necessary documents for travel to competitions. Completed training about a week before departure. We were disappointed as our team arrived in India last. We worried, because the robot handed over in luggage, and nobody knew that it could happen there.
The day order in India was very dense, the organizers decided to divide the 3 competition days on 3 stages. The first stage is preparatory. All day we dealt with the debugging of the robot, although we faced problems. Due to the large number of participants, teams (there were 51) had the least time for the run robots, although it was we really needed. The second stage is qualifying.
From early morning (7:00 local time), we were given half an hour to debug, after that the robot climbed to the quarantine, and then followed 2 rounds. As the result the best 18 teams were selected.
We took 8th place, ahead of the other 3 teams from Russia. A friendly team from St. Petersburg was ranked only 21st place and couldn’t compete in the final.
The third stage is the final one. We also were given half an hour to debug, and then followed 5 rounds. In the 2nd round due to disconnection of one of the sensors our robot was out of the working area. It was really annoying because we lost points. We could take only the 10th place. One line from us was the team from Chuvashia and the entire podium was occupied by the teams of Taiwan.
We came home with mixed feelings, on the one hand we had the fatigue and desire to sleep, and with another - it was a joy to return home and the realization that we have got the experience and motivation to continue working on robotics, to move to new goals, to improve. In mid-January of the following year the new trends in this kind of competition will be known. We hope that it will be something very interesting. Immediately start preparing".
Associate Professor of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics Alexander Minkin prepared Elabuga team for competitions. Note that Alexander makes a significant contribution to the development of one of the topical areas in the world - educational robotics. During a year and a half he conducts classes in robotics for students of secondary schools and students “Center for Educational Robotics”. He is one of the organizers of Open robotics competitions, organized annually in the University and it is the largest platform for gaining new knowledge and experience exchange in the field of technical creativity of youth of the Republic. Under his leadership, talented students get extra knowledge that can help their projects, the embodiment of bold ideas, just like this time. It is very gratifying that the students of Elabuga Institute of Kazan Federal University were in the top ten on the basis of the status of international robotics competitions!
Dear students, the staff of the University is proud of you, your persistence, achievement, and wish you new victories!
For reference:
WRO competitions have 12-year history. World Robot Olympiad is held more than in 55 countries around the world. Since 2004, the competitions were held in Singapore, Taipei, Manila, Jakarta, Doha and other cities.