RoboCup Junior @ NEMO

Last Saturday, Laurens and I were asked to give a LEGO Mindstorms NXT demo at the Dutch Robocup Junior championships.  We had our table setup on the second deck, right along the path to the actual arena.

There were plenty of robots there but one in particular caught my eye.  It was the Talentenclub’s Talentenbot.  It was the only one using the Rotacaster omniwheels and this proved to be a massive tactical advantage.

It came as no surprise that they ended up winning the championship and qualified for the World Championships in Eindhoven next year!  Well done guys!  The superior grip of their Rotacaster wheels proved to be too much for their opponents, they were simply pushed aside with little or no effort.  I had quite a number of the other teams coming to our booth afterwards to ask how they could get their hands on some of these wheels.

The team’s members (One of them couldn’t be there as it was his birthday):

• Wilfred (14) – Programmer
• Rick (13) – Programmer
• Daniel (12) – Builder
• Alexander (11) – Builder

The team’s excellent supervisors:

• Yonathan Klijnsma – Programmers’ coach
• Mathijs Frissen – Builders’ coach

I look forward to seeing how you guys get on in Eindhoven next year!