A-Robot Going to France

In middle May 2016, the national stage of the EUROBOT-2016 International Students Robotic Contest took place at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology. The A-Robot team of Astrakhan State University gained the 3rd place.

This event unites young enthusiasts of robotics; their technical task is to make an autonomous robot, which would compete with other robots.

The A-Robot team of ASU included students of our Department of Physics & Technology: Timur Kunshkaliev (captain), Dmitry Reztsov (electronician, mechanic, programmer), Nikolay Svischev (electronician, mechanic), Ivan Kolesnikov (electronician, programmer), and Mikhail Ilmenskiy (electronician, mechanic). Ivan Mikhaylov, Chief of the Center of Viable Technologies in Electronics & Robotics of ASU, supervised our team.

The Contest agenda included a number of tests for a participating robot to pass on a special game field: Flags (a robot was to pick up beach flags); Seashore Fishing (a robot is to catch as many fish as possible); Seashells (collecting seashells); Umbrellas (a robot was to open an umbrella and hide from heat under it). Strict rules concerning robots’ actions and restrictions regulated each stage of the Contest; if a team complied with them, it gained additional scores. There were also specific requirements towards the very robots (their sizes, power sources, designs, control panels, safety, etc.).

Our students were preparing for the upcoming Contest for months by improving and enhancing their robot. They provided it with omnidirectional wheels, thanks to which it could go in any direction and even spin. As our students say, the level of event arrangement and refereeing was very high at the Contest. The young specialists would like to thank Dr. Alexey Rybakov (Director of ASU’s Institute of Researches & Solutions to Technological Tasks) and Dr. Nikolay Vybornov (Dean of ASU’s Department of Physics & Technology) for their support.

Let us congratulate our prizewinners and wish them good luck in the International Finals of EUROBOT-2016, which are to take place in Kremlin-Bicêtre, France on June 11-12, 2016.