2 min.
They were the loudest fans. You couldn’t miss them and their coloured hats, laughs and thundering applause. Then, they turn serious and concentrated to check up on the small dancing robot that keeps failing his ballet to the tune of Ravel’s Bolero.
Two teams made the finals: Roboeboli from the 2° Circolo didattico di Eboli (Salerno) and Pianeta Aurora from the Istituto comprensivo Mozart in Rome. The RomeCup 2010 final was held on March 20th in the Campidoglio Protomoteca to establish which team would compete at the Robotics World Championships to be held in Singapore on June 19-25.
The robots dance to the rhythm of music, follow choreographies or interpret themes. They dance individually and in teams and provide true shows that capture the spectator through natural movements. Each exhibition is one or two minutes. In the Dance Category, the jury evaluates choreography and syncronisation to music. Besides dancing, the robots can recount a story, a theatical piece and even use stage costumes. The jury’s judgement, therefore, also takes interpretation into consideration.
Prof. Massimo Romagnoli, a judge for the Dance Category, tells us his impressions at the end of the competition: “It was great to see the enthusiasm of children and parents. Beautiful choreographies were chosen and the technical level was extremely high notwithstanding the young age of the children.”
Fiorella Operto is a founding member of the Genoa Robotics School: "Each of the teams has an interesting characteristic. The children from Eboli meticulously prepared the costumes, music and movements, while the Roman students worked particularly well on the robots’ arm movments that were perfectly syncronised with the music, a difficult feature."
