More than four hundred young people participated in the 16th edition of RoboParty

On the 21st, in the solemn opening session, the highlight was the presence of Rui Vieira de Castro, rector of the University of Minho, Adelina Paula Pinto, vice president of the Guimarães City Council, and the president of the School of Engineering, Pedro Arezes, who highlighted the importance of the event, both at a technological and educational level.

The 16th edition of RoboParty had as its first training the construction of the controller board and soldering of electronic components, with the delivery of electronic and mechanical components for the construction of the 100% Portuguese Kit and compatible with Arduino, the Bot’n Roll ONE A robot, developed by botnroll.com, a spin-off from the University of Minho.

Afterwards, the participants began building the robot. Participants were able, in parallel, to enjoy some recreational and sporting activities such as a table tennis tournament, a peddy paper, archery, functional training, basketball or a chess tournament.

Teachers enrolled in the accredited training also attended training in MatLab and Simulink given by Ascension Vizinho-Coutry, European representative of MathWorks, who also demonstrated a new library developed specifically for the botnroll robot.

After dinner, still on the 21st, there was a performance by Tun’Obebes – Female Engineering Tuna from the University of Minho, and Afonsina – Engineering Tuna from the University of Minho. The participants, however, continued to work well into the night and “a good percentage actually stayed working all night, with great joy and good spirits, such was their desire to see the robot built and programmed”, says Fernando Ribeiro.

On the second day of the event, training took place on programming “Arduino IDE” robots and then the participants began programming their Bot’n Roll ONE A. In the afternoon there were two robotic challenges “Obstacles” and “Race of Champions” .

On the third day, Saturday, 23rd, the “RoboParty Fun Challenge” took place, where each robot had to push dozens of table tennis balls into the opponent’s court. After lunch, in the canteen of the University of Minho, the Dance challenge began, which was attended by a large audience.

Finally, prizes were awarded to the top three in all sporting and robotic challenges.

RoboParty offered certified training to 63 teachers, with 30 hours of training, 1.2 credit units, through the Francisco de Holanda Training Center.
The organization also highlights the commitment of around 70 volunteers who are Industrial Electronics students, in addition to around 40 other members of the organization.

RoboParty is organized by the Automation and Robotics Laboratory of the University of Minho and botnroll.com, a spin-off from the University of Minho.