A glance back at the DroneBot Challenge on International Drone Day.
Tomorrow, Saturday, May 4, is both Star Wars Day and International Drone Day, which aims to raise awareness on the responsible use and innovative potential of drones in various sectors.
In support of International Drone Day, we have chosen to repropose some of the activities at RomeCup 2024 and, in particular, the creative DroneBot Challenge, which was held for the first time.
First place was taken by Team Volterrabots from the Liceo Vito Volterra in Ciampino (Rome) who were helped by experts from the Engineering Macroarea at the University of Rome - Tor Vergata.
The team was composed by six students: Aurora and Diego - Class 4° SD, Lorenzo and Leonardo - Class 4° SC, Marco and Matteo - Class 4° SA. The six students piloted a drone through an obstacle course and subsequently maneuvered a remote rover to bring it to a designated area.
The jury also assigned two other awards: one to the Rome Edoardo Amaldi School for its drone built with recycled materials and its modular rover and another to the Ferrari School for their commitment and enthusiasm.
In total, 23 teams from 17 upper secondary schools participated in the creative contests with 11 Italian universities.
The University of Rome - Tor Vergata was also present in the showcase area with various self-driving vehicles, drones, and rovers with indoor localization systems, presented by Francesco and Simone in the video. Video cameras and localization algorithms based on artificial vision allow the devices to move in unknown internal environments, avoiding obstacles, and a centralised coordination and control system directs their movements, defining the route to take in order to survey the area and take photographs.
On its website, the Lico Volterra underlines the other successes obtained by its students in other editions of RomeCup: “We would like to remind you that our institute now has a consolidated tradition in participating in RomeCup university contests. Our students won the Cobot contest, reserved for robotic applications for rehabilitation, in two past editions: in 2018, with Sdegav, a robotic device prototype for transferring users from wheelchairs to vehicles and, in 2019, with Volterra Vibrasound, a robotic device designed for people with hearing difficulties, controlled by an app that allows users to set a timer and produce vibrations and switch on a LED. Furthermore, again in 2019, one of our teams won the Agrobot contest, reserved for robotic applications in agriculture, with the WeedBuster Project, a robotic device that destroys weeds through the emission of laser beams.
In the 2021 remote edition, our students presented the Moby device, an electric kart that can be driven by a disabled person, equipped with adequate braking systems and sensors for calculating the distance between the vehicle and any obstacles. Finally, in the 2022 edition, once again on-site, one of our teams presented the iSerra robotic device, a prototype of a self-managing greenhouse with sensors controlled by an Arduino board in which the fundamental parameters for plant life are measured.”
“May the Force be with you!” All the best to the Liceo Vito Volterra students in Ciampino for Star Wars Day.
