The Automation and Robotics Laboratory of the University of Minho and its spin-off botnroll.com promote RoboParty 2024 from this Thursday to Saturday, March 21st to 23rd, with around 450 participants from all over the country, but also from Brazil and Spain.
This 16th edition takes place in the sports hall on the Azurém campus, in Guimarães, and the public has free entry.
This is the largest educational robotics event in the world, teaching how to create and build autonomous mobile robots in a simple and lively way.
Participants in this RoboParty are between 10 and 66 years old, with most of them being in the 15-17 age group. There are 111 teams (with four members each), including four teams from Brazil and four from Spain.
At the beginning of the event, teams receive a kit of “Bot’n Roll One A” robot parts. This is followed by basic training in electronics, programming and mechanics to enable the construction of the prototype, in an environment of mutual help and with permanent support from 65 students, mainly from Industrial Electronics and Computer Engineering at UMinho.
THREE DAYS
On the second and third days, participants put their robots to the test in four challenges: Race of Champions, Obstacle Test, Fun Challenge and Dance, the latter being on Saturday at 2pm, captivating a large audience due to its spectacularity.
There are some surprises in Fun Challenge, as the robots are not 100% autonomous and need the dexterity of their “master”. At the end, participants will be able to take the robots with them home or to school to continue learning.
Over the three non-stop days (young people bring a sleeping bag), there are parallel recreational and sporting activities, such as gadget presentations, DJs, basketball tournaments, table tennis, chess and archery, as well as functional training. , peddy paper and performances by Tun’ Obebes and Afonsina.
This year also highlights the demonstrations of robots developed at UMinho (helper Charmie and the Footballers), the launch of the new botnroll (allows computer vision and programming in Python) and accredited MatLab and Simulink training for teachers. Since 2007, RoboParty has had more than 8,000 young people having fun and learning electronics, programming and mechanics.
