Oleg Marchenko, NSU IT Department student, joined the Russian team at the international robot competition, the World Robot Olympiad. In early November, the Russian team will go to Costa Rica where the championship is held.
The World Robot Olympiad is an annual international robotics tournament for young people age 10 to 21 years old. It is held in different countries around the world. The first festival took place in Singapore in 2004. Every year a different country is chosen to host the competition. Today more than 1,500 young people from more than 50 countries take part. This year the championship will be held November 9-12 in San Jose (Costa Rica).
The Olympiad has competitions for three different categories of robots: basic, creative and football. The basic and creative categories also have age divisions: junior, middle and senior.
Oleg Marchenko is competing in the senior age group (Senior High) for the main category as part of the Novosibirsk team "League of Robots - Binom". The team also includes Pavel Toropov, a student from Novosibirsk State Technical University (NSTU), Alexander Khamkhoev, a graduate of the St. Petersburg Physics-Mathematics Lyseum № 239, coach Valery Rassomakhin (NSTU) and judge Nikolai Pak.
Selection for the international competition takes place in several stages: regional (May 2017), Russian (June), federal training camps (August). Only 2-3 teams in each age group are selected to participate in the International final stage of the Olympiad.
Oleg Marchenko has been involved with robots since the 8th grade at Lyseum No. 159. In 2014, he won the Russian stage of the Olympiad in the free category for the first time, and since 2015 he has regularly participated in the main category. In 2015 and 2016 Oleg Marchenko was a member of the Russian national team at the World Robot Olympiad and went to competitions in India and Qatar. Marchenko believes that this year the Novosibirsk team has a real chance to win a prize:
"Preliminary competitions are held for two days. The first qualification round selects up to 64 teams who will compete for the prize places the following day. The second day of the competition goes according to the system 64-32-16 to pass the test races for the robots. In 2015, we did not pass on the second day. In 2016, we were able to reach the TOP-10 teams and stayed in the lead for a long time. This year, I hope, everything will be improved and we will have earned our place on the pedestal".
Marchenko decided to study at the NSU IT Department because he really likes programming and electronics. "I think in the future my life and career will be closely related to robotics", he added.
Students at the NSU Information Technology Department have a tradition of being active participants in Olympiads and other competitions at the highest level. We are very pleased that the list of such competitions grows from year to year. Our responsibility as a Department is to support and encourage students like Oleg. We are proud that one of our first-year students is a member of the Russian team for the Robot Olympiad and will represent our country on an international level. This is already a victory.
