Media Alert: Fifteenth World Robot Olympiad Finals Set in Thailand

Surprise Rules & Automation Will Challenge Young Competitors to Solve Real Problems at Popular Annual Event

The World Robot Olympiad™ Association plus joint sponsors LEGO^® Education and Juniper Networks, an industry leader in automated, scalable and secure networks, announced this year’s global finals are due to take place starting this Friday, 16 November 2018, in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Four-hundred and eighty-four teams, comprising over 1,200 individuals from 63 different countries, are due to participate across eight age- and task-based categories. The teams will demonstrate their ability to problem-solve and innovate using LEGO-based robots they have designed, built and programmed themselves.

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This year’s event has a theme of ‘Food Matters’, around which some of the competitive challenges are based. The challenges are known in advance so the teams can prepare their approach, but they must also deal with a ‘surprise rule’ announced at the start of the finals, testing ability to work as a team, think quickly and adapt both hardware and software unaided. They must also begin with their robots disassembled, having l*********** and size constraints to deal with to build from scratch and without instructions or adult intervention.

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To keep up with this year’s finals, please follow #WRO2018 for daily photo and video updates.

News Highlights:

• The age of participants ranges from six to 25 years old, spanning starter categories to sophisticated, business case-driven challenges.
• Robots must be built using only specified elements, including LEGO^® MINDSTORMS^® and LEGO^® Education WeDo 2.0, depending on the category.
• Based on previous years, the 2018 Final in Thailand is likely to attract approximately a thousand spectators over three days of competition.
• Since the 2018 season began in mid-January, country heats and finals have taken place around the globe in 70 countries. A total of more than 26,000 teams, have competed in 444 tournaments for coveted places in the WRO International Final.
• A team consists of one coach and two or three team members.
• A series of awards, including the inaugural “Juniper Networks’ Engineering Simplicity Honors Award” and the “LEGO Education Creativity Award”, will be made during the event.

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