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Seventeen children between 7 and 15 years old took part in the World Robot Olympiad (WRO), organised by Andorra Telecom. This edition was dedicated to the fight against food waste. The robots had to classify items of food on a counter, which represented food in different states, depending on whether the product was unripe, if it was suitable for consumption, or if it was no longer edible. Mister Loop (Ares Rovira and Adrià Isal); Safabest (Nil Fonseca and Martín Cañada) and Salvajes (Pere Moles, Pilar Sagalàs and Etna Coll) were the winning teams and they will represent the Principality in the Spanish final, to be held in Platja d'Aro.

“Although the challenge is the same, no robot or programme is the same”, explains the Director of the Loopa technological classroom, Joan Rovira. The teams, with differentiated strategies, had to work in two ways. First of all there is the assembly and the control of the robot's balance and movements. Then there is the programming, which is the most difficult part. “We help them by explaining about basic structures, but they design the programme themselves”, states Joan Rovira.

The students have been working for an hour a week after school since January in order to finish the projects in time for the contest, held this Friday at the corporate headquarters of Andorra Telecom.

Last year an Andorran team managed to qualify for the world final in India. “It was an impressive experience, although with countries like South Korea, where children take up robotics as a sport and devote more than ten hours a week to it, being in the top twenty is very difficult”, commented Rovira. For them to be able to take part was an achievement in itself because “in Spain there are very strong teams from Madrid, Barcelona or Seville and we managed to be up there with them”. This year they also hope to be in the final, which will be held in Thailand in October.