SIGN UP FOR OUR 
A project is tested in competition. Source: MICITT
On August 17th, the Fifth National Robotics Olympiad of Costa Rica culminated with an awards ceremony and the announcement of the young robotic scientists who will represent our country at the World Robot Olympiad (WRO) in Russia later this year. The theme of this year’s robotics competition was Space Exploration, and the winning projects featured diverse concepts -from a robotic space station to a robot that cleans up space junk. More than 300 competitors spread among 135 teams participated in the National Robotics Olympiad this year. The event was organized by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Informatics (Spanish initials: MICIT) and was sponsored by the University of Costa Rica, National Instruments, LEGO, the National Institute of Learning, the Costa Rican Institute of Technology and the Omar Dengo Foundation. It is interesting to note that many of the competing teams were made up entirely of young girls, who have been greatly increasing their participation over the years. The four categories in the competition, the winning teams and their projects were:
- Category A: Carlos Ballestero, Kevin Ramírez and Julio Bonilla, who developed a rocket launch system.
- Category B: Juan Carlos Brenes and Mariana Murillo, whose project envisions a robotic system for space junk collection. Fittingly, this is something that the Ad Astra Rocket Company of Guanacaste is working on at this time.
- Category C: Ramón Monge and Gerardo Monge, who presented a robotic space station.
- College Category: Laura Fonseca and Andrey Solano, who developed a trading system for future manned colonies in Mars.
At the awards ceremony, MICIT’s leader Gisella Kooper stated that: “This type of competitions show that Costa Rica can be more than just a banana republic.” The nine young Ticos above will travel to Russia in November. The WRO will be held at Sochi from 21st to the 23rd of November. Competitors will be presented with a specific challenge to solve through the application of robotics, and they will also be given an opportunity to present a project of their own vision. Costa Rica has been the only country in the Central American and Caribbean region to participate in the WRO, and it has consecutively done so since 2011. Besides Costa Rica, the other Latin American nations that enter the WRO are Bolivia, Mexico and Peru.
