By Elka Kondakova
While many of us enjoyed some off-time during the Thanksgiving break, 10th Graders Petar Genov and Phillip Cherganski, who are central to the new ACS club STEM Lego robotics, participated in the biggest robotics festival in Europe,
Robotex 2017. It traditionally takes place in Estonia's capital Tallinn, and this year was on November 24-26.
3700 participants with their 1600 robots competed in 23 categories, not only to determine who is the best but also to "get on the same page" and demonstrate to one another that there are no boundaries to development and that robots are not our future but are already part of our present and their capabilities aren't at all bound to some sci-fi and/or apocalyptic movie. Besides, it is now clear that there are no age restrictions on when one can start with robotics. It could be at 7, or 57… or older…
Petar Genov participated in the Line Following category where the objective was for the robot constructed by the student to follow the trajectory of a twisting black line and finish within 2 minutes. The robot that Petar had programmed was among the fastest 15% of all robots that finished the race and just 68 hundredths of a second over the time limit separated it from the prizes. Making the top 15% among 165 competitors is an achievement in itself, especially if one is doing the competition for the first time.
The other two categories, where our boys participated as members of a team, were:
Folk Race: In this category, the idea was to compete against 4 other robots on an obstacle course. The course had an irregular shape and some of the obstacles included tiles sticking from the walls, a pole in the middle of the track and a bridge. For every lap completed in the correct direction a point was awarded, and for every lap completed in the wrong direction a point was subtracted. The team's robot was a LEGO but it competed against faster robots, like Arduino. It performed best among the LEGO robots since it followed the track almost without a hitch, while most robots got stuck in places. The team made it to the semi-finals!
City Passing: In this category, the robot must navigate a replica of city streets. After going through several 90-degree curves and a roundabout, it must find a parking spot and park there. To robots, parking is no less challenging than it is to human drivers in a real urban environment. Many robots could not handle this extreme task, but this team's robot did it flawlessly. It was passed only by the participants who preprogrammed their robots for that particular course, while our players' strategy was to use sensors so that it could navigate any track.
Even though they didn't win medals, Petar and Phillip came back inspired to improve on their accomplishments and pass on their experience to the other members of the club.
I salute them and wish them the best of luck!
