How two young Swiss won the robotics world championship

Aargau Kanti students Quirin Meier and Mael Strasser won first place at the “World Robot Olympiad”, beating 90 other teams in their age category.

The University of Bern announced on Monday that it was the first time ever that a Swiss team had reached the top of the rankings.

This year’s international youth robotics competitions took place in Panama from November 7 to 9. A total of 1,200 children and young people from approximately 80 countries took part, including twelve from Switzerland.

Lego robot programmed

In the ‘Seniors’ age category, in which Quirin Meier and Mael Strasser participated, the robots had to unload, refuel and pilot ships (see video).

The robots with which the 8 to 19-year-old participants took part in the competition were programmed and assembled themselves from Lego after months of teamwork, according to the press release from the University of Bern.

The two newly crowned robotics world champions have known each other since kindergarten and have been competing in the Robotics Olympics as the “Robolution” team for about four years. Mael is more concerned with the code, while Quirin takes on more of a designer role.

The World Robot Olympiad is an international competition for children and young people that has taken place in a different country every year since 2004. Switzerland has also been involved since 2013, the officials wrote.

The WRO Switzerland association organizes the Olympic Games on a voluntary basis. Since 2017, we have been a member of the Science Olympiad with competitions in biology, chemistry, geography, linguistics, mathematics, computer science, philosophy, physics and economics.

Sources

(dsc)