Results of the Russian Robot Olympiad held at Innopolis University have been announced thus revealing the members of the national team that will participate in the capital of India at WRO 2016 this November. According to the international experts, Russian robotic team is very likely to become an Olympic champion.
On August 5-12, Innopolis University held training selections where instructors and judges chose the members of the Russian national robotic team. During the last week, 94 participants aged 10 to 19 years have been programming robots, competing with each other and finishing their projects.
The training selections engaged winners of the final stage of the Russian Robot Olympiad held at Innopolis University on June 25-26. Young people brought their own tried-and-tested material and completed their projects under supervision of the top robotic instructors.
After selections, robotic enthusiasts left for their hometowns to continue individual training for the international competition. On November 25, our heroes will compete with the best world robotic technicians at the Olympiad in New Delhi.
Let us see what is WRO, how to get ready for it and what are Russia's chances of success.
Olympiad Movement
The history of the World Robot Olympiad started in 2004. The task of participants is to program LEGO-robots for competitions in three categories: Regular, Open and WRO Football. The Russian national championship being a part of WRO includes multiple selection rounds held on the school, district, city and countrywide levels every year. Russian Robot Olympiad has been being coordinated by Innopolis University since 2014.
According to statistics, our country has constantly been among the five leaders in the overall medal standings. Last year, Russia took the third position having two gold medals in the Regular Category (Junior High) and the Open Category (High School), and two silver medals in the Student Category and Open Category (Elementary).
In 2014, the World Robot Olympiad took place in Sochi, Russia. However, at the Russian national championship 2016, Nikolay Nikiforov, Minister of Telecom and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation, announced that the country is going to apply for hosting the WRO finals in 2018.
Competition Areas
Participants of the World Robot Olympiad compete in three categories: the Regular Category (Elementary, Junior High, High School and Student - Bowling), the Open Category and the WRO Football.
The Regular Category in the first three age groups is focused on recycling of waste. Participants of the Olympiad are to develop robots able to perform complicated tasks on path cleaning and recycling. The complexity level depends on the age of participants.
At the Bowling Student Category participants are to program their robot so that it could take a ball, throw it and knock down as many bowling pins as possible.
The WRO Football Category involves two players from each team (a goalkeeper and a forward, or two forwards) that appear on the soccer field in order to score goals. The game lasts for two 5-minute rounds monitored by a special judge.
Participants of the Open Category are given a challenging task to design a robot reducing household and industrial waste. The robotic enthusiasts shall combine LEGO with other elements and equipment. After that, the judges evaluate the project quality and its potential in terms of programming, design, presentation and teamwork.
The main goal of all participants is to enable seamless operation of a robot. Other challenges are related to adaptability of the algorithm and the structure used for completion of the additional task.
Russian Participants
The Russian national team 2016 includes 15 teams from 13 regions, each consisting of 30 participants. The youngest participant is a 10-years-old Yegor Yermakov from Sverdlovsk Region, and the eldest one is a 16-year-old Semen Sanarov from the Republic of Tatarstan. Although male participants prevail, the national team includes a girl, Galina Shlyaga from Snezhinsk, who competes in the WRO Football.
The team also includes winners of the World Robot Olympiad of previous years. In particular, robotic technicians from Saint Petersburg Georgy Krylov, Evgeny Maksimychev, Nikita Safronov were second in the Student Category at WRO 2015.
In total, there were 45 people who have participated in WRO held in Sochi in 2014 or in Doha, Qatar in 2015.
Winners of the Russian national competition in the Creative Category will be announced in September. As a result, another four teams will join our national team.
Projects
Rap The Scrap was the main topic of all projects in the Open Category. Participants were to develop robots able to solve environmental problems in future.
Schoolchildren from Moscow came up with a solution helping the entire regions to dispose of waste. Their team project titled "Chisty Gorod" (Clean City) (https://youtu.be/5FES_PAKUrI) where dwellers of modern multi-storey residential complexes sort out waste using special garbage disposers.
The key idea of the project is that waste in garbage disposers is compressed, shaped in briquettes and labeled.
Later on, waste goes to the basement level,automatic loaders transport it from residential venues to the waste processing plant where waste is automatically sorted out according to labels for further processing.
Participants from Ulyanovsk Region developed a SmartBin complex solution encouraging separate waste collection among urban dwellers (https://www.youtube.com/watch? v = 1bKqiu3BvOE). Young people designed a recycle bin that analyses and identifies different types of waste according to labels or packaging features using a computer vision technology.
Those who dump garbage in this recycling bin will gain scores with their number depending on the waste amount and its value. For the scores to be accrued to the account of the individual who disposed garbage, users shall identify themselves. One can exchange scores for a soft drink which is dispensed by the vending machine being a part of the solution.
The project was prepared under supervision of Alexander Repin, whose team became a prize-winner of the international championship of the World Robot Olympiad in 2014.
In addition to these two projects, another 4 teams compete for joining the national team in the Open Category.
Instructors
Our team was trained by instructors whose teams have achieved great results at the national and international competitions in robotics. This year, the team of instructors consists of 15 people from 10 regions of Russia: Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Republic of Tatarstan, Primorsky Kray, Nizhny Novgorod, Kirov, Sverdlovsk, Rostov and Chelyabinsk Oblast.
Sergey Mustafin, instructor of Olga Kozlova and Sergey Chuprikov, the last year winners of the Olympiad in Qatar, is an official instructor of the Russian national team in Olympiad robotics responsible for youth affairs. Dmitry Luzin, instructor of the last year silver medalists from Saint Petersburg, assists him. Dmitry is a head instructor and methodologist at the Robotics Development Centre in Vladivostok where he trains young children of the junior age group.
Sergey Shlyaga from Snezhinsk is in charge of training participants of the WRO Football. He is a Chief Judge of the Robot Football finals at the Russian Robot Olympiad and an official instructor of the national team in Olympiad robotics.
Our national team is getting ready for the competition under guidance of other 11 experts from all parts of Russia who know how to make a path to the Olympic gold.
Chances of Success
According to the international judges, every year Russian participants are preparing to the contest more carefully to get over their main competitors from Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan and Japan.
"We recognize the importance of these training camps and the lasting impact they have on students, - commented Claus Christensen, Secretary General of WRO. Innopolis runs Russian Robot Olympiad in a very organized way. That is a strong contribution to the current and future success of WRO in Russia".
He noticed that Russian teams have always been and are strong contenders for medals at WRO international finals – and they will continue to be so. According to the Secretary General, participation of Russian youth contributes significantly to healthy competitive ambiance of international WRO finals.
"We value highly the loyal support from our friends in Russia and their assistance in many ways: from creation of enthusiastic atmosphere to development of programs. Russian teams are marked out by their will to win and great enthusiasm", added the Secretary General.
