They won the 10th International City of Rome Robotics Trophy in the Dance Secondary Category at RomeCup 2016. In May, at the Maifest, the inaugural evening of the Fiera SPS IPC Drives Italia, they received a special mention for “multidisciplinary integration” at the first edition of the Robotics Olympics. And now, at the 21st edition of RoboCup in Leipzig, they clinched first place in the “RCJ OnStage Secondary” Category.
They are students at IIS Cipriano Facchinetti in Castellanza (Varese) and protagonists of the esciting AURAT Project, an acronym that stands for “add a robot to the table”: Davide Anfuso, Gianmario Casula, Mattia Bruno, Valentina Squizzato, Luca Tartaglia, Andrea Cappone, Giacomo Savazzi, Nicholas Colzani, Simone Tognella, Matteo Caon and William Coppola. Their coach is Prof Loris Pagani.
Three of them - Davide, Gianmario and William – already have another important test. On July 9, they will take their final oral examination. “We’ll wear our national blue football team top,” they say to Journalist Alessandra Toni, who was the first to interview them for the Varese News magazine.
“We arrived on June 28 and competed for 4 days,” David Anfuso explains. “It was a beautiful, although, tiring experience. The competition was fierce, but the jury was meticulous and very well prepared.”
For four days, the 12 students worked to improve and perfect the show that saw the only female student - Valentina Squizzato – dance on stage with a refrigerator, lamp, and clock, all of which were small robots. Their perfect timing impressed the judges. “We beat Germany by just a few votes, especially thanks to the technical part,” explains Gianmario Casula. “The complexity of the show, however, was important.”
Days of profound concentration: “The teams up against Mexico and Brazil were tough,” Davide tells us. “We became friends with the Brazilians. Their show was fantastic, probably better than ours, but our technique was superior. China showcased an incredible serpent with perfect mechanics, but our programming was more precise.”
“The complexity of the show was important,” added Casula. It was a real team game in which the students collaborated with all their different specialisations.
Read the article on Varese News (in Italian):
La maglia azzurra sul podio di Lipsia: il Facchinetti vince il mondiale di Robocup
Students, Robot Aurat and Prof Loris Pagani at the Campidoglio for RomeCup 2016.
Innovation in school as seen by Prof Loris Pagani
