Romanian Students: Robotics Champions at First Tech Challenge 2022

Romanian students are the winners of the robotics championship First Tech Challenge 2022. Delta Force team made history for Romania this year as being the first foreign team to win this tournament.

The USA hosted 160 teams of robotics enthusiasts for the First Tech Challenge 2022. It’s the first time a team from outside the United States has won the tournament since it was founded by American inventor Dean Kamen 33 years ago.

FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) is a robotics competition in which students in grades 7–12 design, build, and program a robot to compete against other teams in an alliance system. Teams design, build and program robots, and they are encouraged to undertake outreach to their communities. Teams compete in local qualifications to qualify for regional qualifiers, and from there, teams compete in regional qualifiers to be eligible for the world championship.

In this year’s competition, Romanian computer science students have made history, being the first Romanian team and international team ever to win the tough tournament of First Tech Challenge. The gain is even sweeter as the American world championship students are recognized as performers and constant winners of this competition.

Octavian Dragoș Botoșan (captain), Raul Floarea, Cătălin Georgescu, Adrian Albotă, Briana Lucaci, Daria Feher, Raul Munteanu, Robert Rus, Dănuţ Tol, Aida Pero, Radu Micle, Mihai Ozarchevici, Sebastian Măcean, and Darius Faur make up the Delta Force team from a Informatics High School from Arad county, Romania. Florin Feher, a professor, and Corina Botoșan, an economist, are the team’s mentors.

The subject of the First Tech Challenge for 2022 was ecological and efficient transportation. In this Houston-based competition, Delta Force Team built a system of four robots with a range of at least 30 seconds that conducted complex lifting and transport activities. The Romanians defeated Brainstorm, the best American team of this year. They were in an alliance with the Up-A-Creek Robotics team in Longmont, Colorado, and the Java the Hutts in Fort Myers, Florida, according to the rules of the game. However, they were superior in all tests and won both semifinals and the division final, with the partnered teams finishing 6th and 7th.

Romania should be proud of these intelligent and talented children who manage to achieve such extracurricular performances despite the shortages in Romanian education. This gain represents more than proof of the potential of Romanian children, and it is another signal of the education sector that demands to be reformed and invested.

The gain belongs entirely to these children and their mentors, who managed to reach this level through many work hours. It’s worth mentioning that the Romanian state did not subsidize this extracurricular activity; also, some activities were covered by volunteers and students from the technical faculties.

Sponsorships are needed to support Romanian students because the state doesn’t encourage such extracurricular activities, neither financially nor materially. It would not be the first time that Romanians had to be recognized abroad in order to be appreciated in their own country.

Photo Source: Natie prin Educatie Facebook page