Thursday, 3/29/2018
The event took place at the Campus of Azurém, in
Guimarães, between 22nd and 24th March.
RoboParty is a
pedagogical event which aims at teaching how to build autonomous mobile robots
in a very simple and fun way. In 2018 RoboParty held its 12th edition with 500
participants and counted on several international teams from Denmark and
Brazil.
The 12th edition
of RoboParty took place between 22nd and 24th March at the Sports Hall of the
University of Minho (UMinho), Campus of Azurém, in Guimarães. The event was
organised by the Automation, Control and Robotics Group of the Department of
Industrial Electronics (DEI) of the School of Engineering of the University of
Minho (EEUM) and the company SAR – Soluções de Automação e Robótica, Lda
(Automation Solutions and Robotics), a UMinho spin-off. In RoboParty, the goal
is to learn how to build autonomous mobile robots in a simple and very engaging
way, forming teams of four people, in a mutual help and fair play environment.
“The
educational, scientific and technological components are the most important in
RoboParty, as young people learn how to program and build a robot. Robotics is
a promising area, and the earlier we teach these young people, the better they
will perform in universities and the labour market”, Fernando Ribeiro, one of
the coordinators of this initiative, and Associate Professor with Habilitation
at the DEI of the EEUM, reinforced.
The
opening solemn ceremony started with the intervention of UMinho’s Rector, Rui
Vieira de Castro, the President of Guimarães Municipality, Domingos Bragança, the
President of the Portuguese Society of Robotics, Nuno Lau, the President of the
EEUM, João L. Monteiro, among others individualities. The participants
highlighted the importance of this event for education, technology and the
exchange of knowledge between youngsters.
Most
participants are between 15 and 18 years old and come mostly from secondary
schools from north to south of the country. Motivation, fun and a willingness
to learn were the keywords in the three days of the event.
The RoboParty
is a 3 days and 2 nights non-stop event, where young people bring a sleeping
bag (they are accommodated in RoboHotel) and a computer and spend the time
building and programming a robot with their own hands. In the end, the robot
belongs to the team.
+ info: http://www.roboparty.org; http://www.dei.uminho.pt
