FIRST Global Challenge: RO team awarded at international robotics competition

Romanian Robotics Team, made up of students of the Traian Lalescu High School in Hunedoara, ranked first in the health category of the FIRST Global Challenge, an international robotics competition, Mediafaxreported. They were among the winning teams in Phase 1 of the Solutions Challenge.

Professor Mircea Nistor, who works with the team, was among the recipients of the Outstanding Mentor Award.

Romanian Robotics Team 2021 included students from the RO038 RobotX Hunedoara and RO121 RobotY Hunedoara teams, who took part in the robotics program FIRST Tech Challenge Romania, organized by Naţie Prin Educaţie association. Both teams come from Traian Lalescu High School in Hunedoara and were coordinated by teachers Mircea Nistor and Adrian Budiul.

Team Romania includes students Brianna Stan, Denisa Stroia, Alecsandru Costa, Ioana Dîscă, Alexandru Budiul, Maria Alexa, Alexia Neamţu, Ruben Rotariu, Radu Susan and Radu Buboiu, working alongside university students and peer mentors Răzvan Vîrtan, Cristian Budiul and Cristina Haranguş.

The 2021 FIRST Global Challenge focused on advancing new ways STEM can prioritize practical solutions and counter the effects of the problems youth and their communities continue to face across the world. The participating teams were tasked with identifying a pandemic-related problem in their community in the area of education, environment, health, or economy, and then creating a project to solve it.

The students proposed a low-cost, scalable health package. They designed four functional prototypes: a dry heat sterilizer, with a cost of less than USD 1, used for the disinfection of protective masks; an autonomous sterilizing robot using UV-C radiation; a mini-station to monitor oxygen levels and ventilation to prevent fires and toxic gas accumulations indoors; and a patient monitoring app. More about the solutions here.

The winning teams are listed here.

(Photo: Blackboard373/ Dreamstime)