Two teams with ETH coach win regional robotics championship
Together with Selina Stoffel, a student at the PH Graubünden, ETH student Fabrizio Reich trains young minds to succeed in robotics competitions in the First Lego League FLL.
On 13 February 2021, two teams from Chur, i-Girls and Fluffy, took first and second place in this year's regional elimination of the First Lego League, and thus qualified for the upcoming final in May. The international robotics competition takes place every year. Pupils between the ages of nine and sixteen are challenged to solve a given task in the so-called "Robotgame". For this, the participants build, test and programme an autonomous robot with LEGO Mindstorms. The contest intends to encourage children and adolescents to try to think like engineers and scientists, and it also strengthens basic social skills.
The two successful teams, i-Girls and Fluffy, are coached by students Fabrizio Reich (ETH) and Selina Stoffel (phGR) as part of a cooperation between the Center for Computer Science Education (ABZ) at ETH Zurich, led by Prof. Juraj Hromkovic, and PH Graubünden.
Fabrizio is a bachelor student at ETH and FLL coach in his fourth season. In the past, the Grisons-born student had himself taken part in the competition. Today, he and Selina are a well-coordinated coaching team. "Selina has a lot of experience in dealing with children and has a good rapport with them," explains the passionate coach. The training sessions take place on Saturdays. "Among other things, we coaches help the children solve problems and teach them little things, such as programming tricks," says Fabrizio.
This year's competition was themed "RePlay". All nine teams gave a short research presentation on how to revolutionise and change playing and moving, and presented their self-built robots to the three-member jury and the online audience.
While the i-Girls, an all-girl team, took the overall victory and first place in the Robotgame division, team Fluffy won first place in the Research Presentation division. According to Fabrizio, the i-Girls are particularly distinguished by the fact that they can call up the required performance almost at the push of a button and retain their playful, laid-back attitude even in competitive situations. Now the two winning teams have another training block ahead of them. The final of the top teams from Germany, Austria and Switzerland will take place on 15 May 2021. Good luck to both teams!
