Eurobot in France: Third place went to a team from Wels

Since 1998, researchers from all over the world have competed in the annual “Eurobot”, a championship in which the best robots are determined. This year’s edition took place last weekend in the French town of La Roche-sur-Yon – with a pleasing result from an Austrian perspective: The “Dynamics” team, consisting of automation technology students from the Wels campus of the Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences, took third place and had to only being defeated by a Belgian and a Serbian team.

In order for a robot to take part in Eurobot, it must meet certain criteria. In addition to being a maximum of 30 centimeters tall, it must act completely autonomously. With the help of sensors, all actions in the competition must be carried out by the robot itself. This year, the aim of the competition was to solve various tasks as quickly as possible and always be faster than the competitor who was randomly assigned. For example, the robots had to repot and cultivate plants, ideally align solar panels or pollinate flowers. It was also crucial that the battery lasted long enough for each task to be able to complete the processes.

According to team leader Michael Zauner, in order to be able to celebrate such successes, one thing is needed above all: “motivated students who can go far beyond their limits in the manufacturing process.” After the first day of competition, the team, consisting of Thomas Hörndler, Maximilian Jäger, Simon Nitsche, Christian Schweighofer, Markus Zehetner, Christoph Eisschiel, Bastian Halbig and Matthias Hofer, “stayed in the hall until after midnight and changed individual details on the robot and optimized”.

Course content in practice

For team member Christian Schweighöfer, the competition was a “great experience, especially because we were able to put the automation technology study content into practice.”