World Robot Olympiad

World Robot Olympiad

Current season, competition or edition: Rap The Scrap! (2016, India)
Formerly	International Robot Olympiad
Sport	Robotics-related games
Founded	1999
Inaugural season	2004
Motto	To bring together young people all over the world to develop their creativity, design & problem solving skills through challenging & educational robot competitions and activities
No. of teams	18,450+(2013)
Countries	See below
Venue(s)	See Below
Most titles	Unknown (Possibly Malaysia or Thailand)
Qualification	By winning the national/state competition
Related competitions	FIRST Robotics Competition FIRST Tech Challenge Junior FIRST Lego League FIRST Lego League RoboCup Junior Robofest
Official website	www.wroboto.org

The World Robot Olympiad is a global robotics competition for young people. The World Robot Olympiad competition uses Lego Mindstorms manufactured by LEGO Education.^[1] First held in 2004 in Singapore, it now attracts more than 20,000 teams from nearly 60 countries.^[2]

The competition consists of 4 different categories, Regular, College, Open and Soccer^[3] and for the Regular and Open categories, it consists of three different age groups: Elementary, Junior High and Senior High. Participants below the age of 13 are considered as Elementary, participants from ages 13 until 16 years old are considered Junior High and participants between 17–19 are considered Senior High. Participants can also compete outside their age group, but they must be younger than the specified age range and must partner up with someone in that age range. For example, a 12-year-old participant can join the Junior High sub-category only if teamed up with someone between 14 and 16.

History

WRO was formally established in 2003, with the first international WRO final being organized in 2004. Organizations from China, Japan, Singapore and Korea are considered the founding countries. In 2004 teams from China, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Russia, Singapore and Thailand took part in the first international final, held in Singapore.

In 2003 the four founding countries established the international WRO Committee (now known as the WRO Advisory Council), which decided to establish a new and permanent robotics organisation, based on the idea that students from all over the world should have the opportunity to meet with other students to fulfil the new mission statement:

"To bring together young people all over the world to develop their creativity, design & problem solving skills through challenging & educational robot competitions and activities"

The WRO Committee decided on the new name WORLD ROBOT OLYMPIAD, and new WRO logos were developed.

Finally the WRO Statutes and a set of General Rules were worked out to ensure a sound and safe future for WRO. One of the major decisions, which appears in the Statutes, was that the international WRO event should be hosted by a new country each year and the WRO Committee should elect a Chairman.

Gameplay

Regular

The Game Table of the WRO2012 Junior High division.

Teams must create a robot which can complete a specified mission determined by the organiser and usually based on the Open Category theme. Before the competition begins, the robot must be fully dismantled: for example, the batteries must be taken out of the brick or the tyres must be taken out from the wheels. It must be built in a specified time (150 minutes) before the first qualification round begins. If a team finishes building their robot before the 150 minutes finish, the team can practice on the competition fields. Each robot is restricted to be 25 × 25 × 25 cm (9.8 × 9.8 × 9.8 in) before the round begins, and may consist of only LEGO certified parts, with specified motors and sensors depending on each competition. It must finish the mission autonomously, within a maximum time of two minutes. Teams are judged on their scores. If two teams' scores are equal, they are judged by their time to the nearest millisecond. The top 8 or the top 16 performers then proceed to the final two or three rounds.

Starting from the 2014 competition, the final round teams were first asked to test their robots for 30 minutes before the first judging rounds, then were given another 10 minutes for testing before being judged again.

Advanced Robotics Challenge (University/College)

Teams compete on a set challenge. Robots may be pre-built and may use certain TETRIX and MATRIX elements. Teams may use either one MyRIO or KNR controller, or two EV3/NXT controllers; there are no restrictions on choice and number of sensors, motors and servos. The size of the robot before it begins must be within 45 × 45 × 45 cm (17.7 × 17.7 × 17.7 in). The maximum time differs depending on each competition.

Open

A robot built for the Open Category.

Teams are required to present their robot with a designated theme. They are judged by their presentation and the functionality of the robot. Robots which are unrelated to the theme score zero points.

WRO Football

Students of Bellarine Secondary College preparing for the GEN II Football.

Introduced in the Manila competition in 2010, the Soccer competition allows teams to create soccer playing robots with a special infrared sensor. The participants must be age 10–19. The mat was used in the early RoboCup Junior competitions before being adopted by the Australian competition. Robots must fit in a 22 cm (8.7 in) diameter cylinder with a height of 22 cm (8.7 in).

Starting from 2015, robots are not allowed to 'dribble', which means that robots will not have the ability to manipulate the ball. The sensor-guiding field will be replaced with a completely green field starting from 2016.

Changes to the Gameplay

As the missions of the Regular, WRO Football and College Category get tougher and more teams in the Open Category are willing to present more creative-looking robots, organisers have to make changes to the list of eligible sensors, motors and bricks to be used in the competition. Initially only RCX bricks, motors and sensors were allowed. In the 2007 competition NXT bricks, motors and sensors were allowed as well. In 2011 the NXT colour sensor was added; in 2012, the HiTechnic colour sensor. In 2013 an EV3 robot was exhibited that used all four motors. In 2014, however, EV3 bricks, motors and sensors were allowed, but the number of motor ports was limited to three, and the EV3 Gyro sensor was not allowed. The 2015 competition allowed four motor ports and the gyro sensor, but not RCX bricks, motors, or sensors.

There are also a few changes to the number of categories. The earlier versions of this competition, before 2006, consists of only Regular and Open and that further sub-divides to only two age groups, Primary and High School.

Hosts

WRO2007 in Taiwan

Year	Host city	Host venue	Competition Theme	National Organiser	Description of Regular Category challenges	Notes
2004	Singapore City, Singapore	Singapore Science Centre	Robolympics	Science Centre
2005	Bangkok, Thailand	Bangkok Science Center	Sensitive robots	Gammaco
2006	Nanning, China		Humanoid	Semia
2007	Taipei, Taiwan	National Taiwan University	Robot for Rescue
2008	Yokohama, Japan	Pacifico Yokohama	Saving the Global Environment
2009	Pohang, South Korea	Postech	Artistic Robots		For the elementary category, the robot has to shoot a ping-pong ball into an allocated cup. For the Junior High category, the robot must collect 100 ping-pong balls and bring it back to the base. For Senior High, the robot place coloured balls into a compartment depending on its colour.
2010	Manila, Philippines	SMX Convention Center	Robots promote tourism	Felta Multimedia
2011	Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates	Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre	Robots for life improvement	Abu Dhabi Education Council ADEC	For elementary, the robot has to solve a labyrinth while taking three ping-pong balls along the way. For Junior High, the robot has to climb a flight of stairs while trying carrying an egg. For Senior High, the robot has to place lego blocks into a certain area depending its size and colour.
2012	Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia	Sunway Pyramid Convention Center	Robot Connecting People	Sasbadi Sdn Bhd	In the elementary category, the robot has to disposed a number of ping-pong balls depending on the colour of a square cell that it is on. In the junior High category, the robot has to move a series of cylinder over hurdles before sorting them out based on their colours. In Senior high, robots have to pick up a hollow brick and slot in on a coloured pole of the same colour.
2013	Jakarta, Indonesia	Ecovention Hall	World Heritage	Mikroskil/Mikrobot	For Elementary, the robot has to sort out batik cubes by colour in a pattern. For Junior high, robots have to restore Borobudur by removing the stupas from 4 different relic statues and determine which one is broken (it is different as for having no minifigures placed on the statue and black in colour) which it has to bring to the finishing area. For Senior High, the robot has to pick up eggs of a Komodo Dragon (represented by a red ball) and leave the other eggs alone (represented by a blue ball).
2014	Sochi, Russia	Sochi Main Media Centre	Robots And Space	Association Of Children’s Goods Industry Enterprises	For Elementary, robots have to build a rocket with the colours of the Russian Flag (In order, white, blue and red). For Junior High, the robot has to pick up space debris (bricks) and failed satellites (balls (both red) and leave the working satellites (blue balls). For Senior High, the robot must activate solar panels (blue and red in colour) and replace the solar panels which are not working (red) with the good ones).
2015	Doha, Qatar	Al Shaqab	Robot Explorers		For elementary, robots must push nine cubes and dispose a number of ping-pong balls depending on the cubes' colour. For Junior High, the robot must first scan a colour key to determine a location of an artefact (blocks) before it leading to one other artefact. There are five artefacts in total but there are some artefacts which the robot can't pick up. For senior high, the robots must place a block on top of a mountain depending on the mountain and the block's colour.
2016	New Delhi, India	India Expo Center	Rap the Scrap	India STEM Foundation	This year WRO India 2016 will engage students to Rap (talk) about waste – an important social issue. Students are expected to come up with innovative solutions using robotics technology to Rap the Scrap i.e. to reduce, manage and recycle waste!
2017	Costa Rica
2018	Denmark

Countries participating

Below are the countries participating in this event. Names of previous Olympiad host countries are italicised; future hosts are in boldface; and countries no longer competing are marked with a dagger (†).

Country	First joined	Organiser	Notes
Armenia	2014	Ayb Educational Foundation	Competition Website
Australia	2011	RoboCup Junior Australia
Bahrain	2011	AMA International School
Belarus	2014	School of Robotics
Bolivia	2009	Centro de Tecnologia Aplicada
Brazil	2014	AMEducação
Brunei	2012	STEP Centre, Ministry of Education
Canada	2014	Robotique Zone 01 Robotics
China	2004	Semia
/Chinese Taipei/Taiwan	2004	ESUN Robot Association in Taiwan	Both Chinese Taipei and Taiwan are used in this Olympiad although the name Chinese Taipei is more favourable by the WRO committee. Both Chinese Taipei and Taiwanese flags are used during the competition.
Costa Rica	2009	Aprender Haciendo Costa Rica S.A.
Denmark	2006	Dept. of Computer Science at Aarhus University / DITEK	Was previously organised by FIRST Scandinavia along with Sweden and Norway
Egypt	2007	Searag
Germany	2009	Technik Begeistert e.V.
Ghana	2012	Ghana Robotics Academy Foundation
Greece	2009	Knowledge Research SA
Hungary	2015	Edutus School of Further Studies
Hong Kong	2004	Semia	Organised by the Organiser of China as Hong Kong is part of China
India	2004	India STEM Foundation (ISF) and National Council of Science Museums (NCSM)	Competition Website
Indonesia	2004	Mikroskil/Mikrobot
Iran	2006	Global Brand Toys
Japan	2004	Afrel
Kazakhstan	2014	VTSH in partnership with Nazarbayev Intellectual School
Kuwait	2011	MILSET Regional office for Asia
Lebanon	2009	Raymond Education
Malaysia	2004	Sasbadi
Mexico	2010	Fundación Care and Share for Education, A.C.
Mongolia	2011	MIND STORM
Nigeria	2011	ARC Lights Limited
Norway†	2006	FIRST Scandinavia	Despite having an organiser, Norway sent no teams to compete.
Oman	2010	Edutech Middle East
Palestine	2015
Panama	2015
Peru	2009	IEP W. von Braun SRL
Philippines	2004	Felta Multimedia
Qatar	2007	College of the North Atlantic
Romania	2013	Knowledge Research
Russia	2004	Moscow Department of Education
Saudi Arabia	2008	Royal Commission Robot Club
South Africa	2009	Hands On Technologies
South Korea	2004	Advanced Learning Co. Ltd
Singapore	2004	Science Centre Singapore	Hosted the first Olympiad
Spain	2013	Fundació educaBOT
Sri Lanka	2004		See below.
Sweden†	2007	FIRST Scandinavia	Stopped competing by 2009
Switzerland	2013	IngCH - Engineers Shape Our Future
Syria	2011	Syrian Computer Society SCS
Thailand	2004	Gammaco
Turkey	2015	Bilim Kahramanları Derneği	www.bilimkahramanlari.org
Ukraine	2009	Prolego
United Arab Emirates	2006	Abu Dhabi Education Council
United States of America	2014	Lawrence Technological University	Competition Website
Vietnam	2013

Guest Countries

Guest countries are countries who send less than 20 teams to compete. Their teams are not ranked.

Country	First joined	Organiser	Notes
Jamaica†	2008		Joined only the 2008 Olympiad.
Sri Lanka	2004

Winners

2008

Regular

Age Group	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Elementary	South Korea	Malaysia	South Korea
Junior High	South Korea	Russia	Singapore
Senior High	Sweden	Singapore	South Korea

Open

Age Group	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Elementary	South Korea	Philippines	Malaysia
Junior High	Taiwan	Malaysia	Thailand
Senior High	Malaysia	South Korea	Taiwan

2010

Regular

Age Group	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Elementary	thailand taiwan india	Junior High	Malaysia	Malaysia	Thailand
Senior High	Thailand	Taiwan	India

Open

Age Group	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Elementary	Philippines	Malaysia	South Korea
Junior High	Philippines	China	Philippines
Senior High	Malaysia	Malaysia	Hong Kong

Soccer(Pilot)

Gold	Silver	Bronze
Indonesia	Thailand	Thailand

Notable sponsors

• Maersk Oil
• Lego Education
• National Instruments

References

External links

• World Robot Olympiad site

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