A weekend full of robots at UPT

RoboTEC awarded its champions

During the 23rd-25th March 2018, Timișoara was the host of the many contestants that participated in the 4th edition of RoboTEC (Robot Engineering Contest), an international robotics competition organized by Liga AC (Liga Studenților din Facultatea de Automatică și Calculatoare) – the students’ organization from the Faculty of Automation and Computing – in collaboration with Politehnica University Timișoara, the Faculty of Automation and Computing and IT&C companies.

The 70 participating teams had the opportunity to compete in at least one of the seven competitions the organizers had prepared for them. The competitions took place in the UPT Electro Building (Maze, Line Follower Turbo, Line Follower Classic and Freestyle) and at Shopping City Timișoara (Line Follower Enhanced, Mini Sumo and Mega Sumo).

The fourth edition brought three new competitions in the contest:

• Line Follower Turbo, the line following trial that tested robots’ speed while it traverses a loop keeping its trajectory intact;
• Line Follower Enhanced, the line following trial in which robots aimed the shortest completion time while avoiding different obstacles on the course (such as junctions, intersections, dashed lines and inverted colors);
• Mega Sumo, the trial in which robots sized 20cm x 20cm and weighting at most 3kg must push their adversaries outside a circular arena.

The official opening of the contest took place on Friday and it was followed by a night of testing and perfecting robots in the hallways of the Faculty of Automation and Computing. The corridors were animated by the robots that were being tested and optimized for competitions and passersby could even witness the robots performing better as hours passed by.

Five of the competitions took place on Saturday. Most of the competitors had well-prepared robots, the contest being on an entirely different level from the past editions. The most spectacular moments of the day were by far the sumo competitions (both mini and mega) in which the battles were a real spectacle. However, the other competitions proved spectacular as well, the audience being amazed by the competing robots.

The last two competitions, Line Follower Classic and Freestyle, took place on Sunday. The demonstrations of the robots and the creativity and ingenuity of the creators have once again astonished the audience. After the competitions were over, the award ceremony took place, being followed by the departure of the contestants, leaving the organizers with the hope that they enjoyed the contest, that they gave their best and that they will return next year just as enthusiastic and determined to win.

These are the winners of each competition: