The European RoboCupJunior Championship (Montesilvano, May 29 – June 1, 2018) was won by IIS Archimede di Catania in the Rescue Simulation Category (ex CoSpace). This is the fourth title won by this school, directed by Fortunata Vetri. Here is a description of the competition in Montesilvano sent to us by the team’s coach, Professor Domenico Ardito. Compliments to Daniele e Ludovico and their super teachers!
The competition was fierce. The teams, besides Italy, came from various European countries such as Russia, Portugal, Germany and Croatia, deputy world champion at Nagoya 2017. The competing students (aged 12-19) faced a difficult technical interview in English, a technical challenge on coding with a jury and then a series of competitions. Our team, Sonny, lost the first competition by very little, but won all the others and placed second for the semi-finals. However, the fact that all the teams were pretty much on the same level, forced them to participate in a further tie-breaker – with a surprise.
The two Archimede students, Daniele Naccarato (Class 4A, Automation) and Ludovico Papale (Class 4A Electro-technics), after spending a sleepless night to optimise their strategies and robotic algorithms, managed to defeat the strong Croatian team. In the semi-finals, we met the Portuguese Rui Baptista School with the same coach with whom we had won the Eindhoven Super Team in the Dance Category, five years ago. And thus, we had our revenge for our elimination in the preliminary rounds and reached the final: a classic, Italy vs. Germany.
We were already on the podium, but Germany seemed an insurmountable obstacle. They had scored incredibly high in every other match, but the students were hopeful and ready for the match. This time, however, the Teutonic robot was ours! It saved victims with an impeccable method, avoiding all traps, and delivered all of them to the collection points. The German team did not do bad either, but every now and then the robots were affected by a small bug in the algorithm. And that made all the difference. We are European champions! The students are happy and confused and so is Prof. Giovanni Gullotta who came with us. And notwithstanding all my experience, I am enthusiastic, too!
However, it’s not over yet. On June 16, another team from Archimede will head to Montreal to attempt another feat: the world title.
Prof. Domenico Ardito
Team Papaoutai, which will head to Canada for RoboCup 2018, was selected at RomeCup 2018 in the Cospace Rescue Category.
