Kiwi.com supports a school team in a tough robotics competition — success!
Congratulations to the Fire Breathing Rubber Duckies who enjoyed fantastic success in the Robotic Competition — First Lego League. They achieved first-place in the category ‘Best Teamwork in the Semifinals’.
The team consisted of students from GVPT (Secondary Grammar School of Viliam Pauliny-Toth from Martin) and pupils of the Primary school of A. Dubček.
Out of 27 teams from Eastern and Central Europe (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Bulgaria, and Slovakia) they performed the best in solving the teamwork tasks.
Team members included Tereza Rafajová, Tomáš Štefanov, Jakub Sokolík, Michaela Mrníková, Michal Miškolci, Lorna Krivušová, Marek Bátory, Matúš Adamko, Jakub Kašjak and Martin Doskočil. They cooperated exceptionally and unbelievably finished the task in a minute and a half. The jury appreciated their creativity and their great team spirit. The coach, Matej Jurčík (IV.F) had not expected the victory because the competition was so high in all the categories. The competition was decided with 4 categories: robot-design, teamwork, research project, and robot-game.
Their research project was named Intelligent Fish Transportation. The students created a special transportation box for aquarium fish — FishBox, which solves the most important problems of transportation. They found that the common method of transportation currently being used is actually flawed.
They designed several prototypes of transportation boxes, which could bring fish all the comfort they need during long-distance transport. The project was discussed with experts, aquarists, shippers, and other fish fans.
Finally, they presented their FishBox to the international jury in Debrecen, Hungary. The box is a portable aquarium an automatic oxidisation system, controlled by the computer. It is filled with water which guarantees the decrease of shake and stress — the most frequent cause of death in transported fish. The system of oxidisation is managed by the base plate Arduino: the timer controls the automatic dosing of oxygen tablets.
They programmed the mobile application, which manages the oxygen tablets dosage. The FishBox can be used by aquarists, fish fans, and also shippers. Fishbox can also be used as a kennel after a few modifications. Students created a real Fishbox, and designed a website fishbox2.webnode.sk with all the information, videos, experts’ reactions and the whole research process.
The team also achieved 7th place in the Research Project category, out of 27 teams, and second-best of all the Slovak projects.
The final position of FBRD was 13th place in the Central European semifinals First Lego League — 4th place out of the 10 Slovak teams in Debrecen.
The team was really pleased with this result, especially as they were all complete newcomers. They benefitted from the participation of gifted pupils — Jakub Kašjak, Matúš Adamko and Martin Doskočil who were able to solve the demanding tasks. This unique cooperation made an impression on the jury and resulted in fantastic success in the category Teamwork, the 1st place.
The cooperation in Robotics between the two schools is going strong in its’ second year. It is outstanding that the high school decided to participate in such a project. It is about giving the opportunity to students from the primary school to get closer to the world of Robotics, and to develop something together.
It’s interesting to see how the older GVPT students have become teachers. They try hard to teach and give experience to the younger team members. The coach Matej Jurčík is a former member of the successful team OHYZDI. He’s now a student of 4F at GVPT and manages the extra-curricular Robotics course throughout the year.
We’re glad that the cooperation brought success and the team’s efforts were rewarded — congratulations! We wish them all a bright future.
The team FBRD was led by: M.Jurčík (Robotics and Programming), RNDr. A. Karkušová (Project), PaedDr. T. Dudík (Teamwork), and B.Kahankova.
What did A. Karkušová say about the team’s work?
“I am giving honour to the whole team. I appreciate their hard work from the first minute to the last one. Participating in such a high level competition has motivated us a lot. The kids want to take part in FLL next year. Today they are discussing improvements of construction and programmes. We came home tired, but definitely happy from Debrecen, where the semifinals took place. I would like to thank Kiwi.com for their irreplaceable support. We are so GRATEFUL to them “
