Around 300 national and international participants will compete in the National Robotics Festival between May 2nd and 5th in Paredes de Coura, the organization revealed.
The president of the Portuguese Robotics Society (SPR), which shares with EPRAMI – Escola Profissional do Alto Minho Interior, the festival’s organizers told the Lusa agency that there will be eight junior competitions, aimed at participants up to the age of 19.
Vítor Pinto added that the ‘First Challenger’ competition “is aimed at students from basic, secondary and professional schools for their first experience in the world of robotics”.
Robotics competitions aim to “promote an innovative, entrepreneurial spirit in children and young people through active teaching methods, as well as the acquisition of transversal skills, also promoting this area among the general public”.
The senior competition, called ‘Dragster’, which aims to “promote robotics and education in the field of engineering, within a framework of competition based on ‘fair play’ principles, will feature, this year, with the participation of teams of five to six members, “mostly Portuguese, but also from Brazil, Holland, Germany, China and Spain”.
“Robotics has been evolving nationally and internationally for a long time, but with advances in artificial intelligence applications, both its knowledge and its proliferation are growing, especially in industry”, observed Vítor Pinto.
In Paredes de Coura, district of Viana do Castelo, the 23rd edition of the National Robotics Festival will take place in the municipal pavilion, and the event program, which includes ‘workshops’, activities, among other actions, has not yet been released publicly.
The organization expects to receive many visitors during the festival which, in 2023, in Tomar, received 10 thousand people.
Parallel to the festival, which is heavily sponsored by the President of the Republic and supported by the Câmara de Paredes de Coura, the twenty-fourth edition of the International Conference on Autonomous Robotic Systems and Competitions will take place on the 2nd and 3rd of May.
