Students from ORT Argentina’s Robotics Club have scored a series of victories in a prestigious competition organized by the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.
The annual Nadav Shoham Robotraffic Competition sees teams of students create intelligent cars which can run on smart roads. The teenagers build their team-work capabilities and gain exposure to high-tech multi-disciplinary robots and sensors as part of the popular program.
The Argentinians’ two gold medal places, one silver medal and one bronze medal, built on the success achieved in previous years by students of the Mecatrónica program.
One student, Martín, explained his role in this year’s victories: “I mainly dealt with the programming part and I was able to learn how to program a robot to follow a line, to respect the traffic light – things I didn’t know and I learnt when preparing for the competition.”
He said the main challenge had been to “test, test and test again… we had to modify the speed to make it go faster without going off the track. Then we had to reprogram it, change values, and that was the most complicated thing. But it was worth it”.
Teammate Lucio added: “The best thing about the competition was the group, both students and teachers. The experience adds a lot to us personally, because last year we competed in the national league in Argentina, but Robotraffic is much more focused on software and in the development of miniature autonomous vehicles to be able to take them to the real world later.”
Students from the ORT Argentina teams
Eva explained the impact of her ORT education. “It was very interesting to be competing against people from all over the world, to compare how the different countries solve challenges and to see how you can stand out. ORT Argentina has highlighted this over the years. Being part of this is to leave a mark.”
Technion’s Professor Moshe Shoham had welcomed students to the competition, saying: “This event brings together brilliant young minds from around the world to showcase innovative solutions in safe driving and autonomous vehicle technology.
“This technology is crucial in a rapidly changing world driven by artificial intelligence and robotics. What you learn in the competition will stay with you whether you win or not and will help you navigate our ever-evolving world.
“This is already your prize for participating in the Robotraffic competition. You can tackle global problems and boost understanding and cooperation among cultures.”
The event took place online in late March. Four teams competed from the ORT Tekhiya school in Moscow, winning one silver and one bronze medal in the racing category. Teams also joined from Vietnam and the United States.
