World Robot Olympiad

by Anna Fowler Internet Marketing

World robot Olympiad is an international level robotic competition. It invites the kids between the ages of seven (7) and nineteen (19). It is an event which brings together the people from different countries together. World robot Olympiad helps kids not only to improve their creativity and problem solving skills but also to share their cultures and make new friends.

It is an event for science and technology education. Invitation to school teams are there, in which each team may consist of minimum two (2) students and maximum three (3) students. This competition is held each and every year. And every year different challenges for the kids are being formulated. According to the specified problem statements kids have to design, build, and program their robots.

The competition starts from the regional rounds held in the particular participating countries and teams which qualify the regional rounds have to fight for qualifying the competition held at national level. And finally the teams which qualify the national round get a chance to participate in international competition. This robotic competition is held on LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Kit.

The objectives of world robotic competition are very much beneficial for the kids and are:

1. To cultivate the technical and logical thinking of the kids up to 19 years of age.
2. To enhance the creativity of the kids.
3. To make them explore the robotics field and make different types of robots with the use of LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT.
4. To co-relate and implement the science concepts in the school course curriculum and to implement them practically which is most relevant for the structural and progressive education.
5. To improve the problem solving skills through robotic competition challenges.

The world robot Olympiad organizes competitions in three different categories namely regular category, open category and WRO 2013 gen II football. Let us have a brief look regarding each of the categories and then we will look forward for the open category.

1. REGULAR CATEGORY- Regular category was the first competition category ever launched by world robotic Olympiad. It is a challenge based competition and divided into three different levels categorized according to the age. In this the teams will design and build a robot to solve a given problem statement on a game table. The challenges for the different age groups are being developed by the host country of that particular year. The allotted time given to the robot for completing the challenge in each of the category is two minutes. And once the robot game starts there should not be any further human input else that particular team will be dis-qualified.

Three different sub- categories of the regular category are-

(a) Elementay- Participants less than 13 years old in the year of competition.
(b) Junior High- Participants less than 16 years old in the year of competition.
(c) High- Participants less than 20 years old in the year of competition.

2. OPEN CATEGORY- Teams present their designs of robots performing tasks based on the theme of the competition. Students are also encouraged to make their presentation according to the theme of the competition and explain it.

3. WRO GEN II Football- Participants must be less than 20 years old in the year of competition. Here team of two robots play a game of football (soccer) in the playing field. Materials allowed to construct the robots are Lego Mindstorms and controllers must be either RCX or NXT and sensors from HiTechnic. The official IR Ball is from HiTechnic.

COLLEGE CATEGORY- This category invites the participants from the colleges to illustrate their creations by demonstrating their robot working. The parts which are used for building of the robot are necessarily from the LEGO only.

Let's discuss about the open category first. This years' theme for the open category is "WORLD HERITAGE". Heritage is our legacy, which we have got from our ancestors. The amazing buildings which are having awesome architecture needs to be preserved. This should be done in order to pass them to our future generations. These heritages symbolize many things which includes learning and powerful source of inspiration. World heritage sites belong to all peoples of the world, irrespective of the locations where they are situated. There is a list of the heritage places of the world. The World Heritage List includes 962 properties forming part of the cultural and natural heritage which the World Heritage Committee considers as having outstanding universal value.

The team has to choose only one heritage site from this whole list and their mission is to design, build and program a robot in order to protect it. The maximum score of the competition is 200 marks.