One more curiosity is perhaps worth mentioning: even though it was in Japan, the home of robots and the very birthplace of this competition, the event started and ran with quite a few organisational problems. The Rescue Maze arena, for example, did not even match the dimensions in the rules RoboCup had published for the world championship. In Rescue CoSpace, the real robot — half of the competition, which competitors received from the organiser for all the competition days — didn't work properly either. Its compass was badly mounted on the chassis, which made the tasks impossible. The organiser's first explanation was interference from heavy electrical installations under the venue; later they investigated the problem, admitted the mistake and officially apologised at the end of the competition.
Throughout the competition, participants did their best to cope with challenges like these. So there was no real sleep until the end — our students also prepared for each competition day late into the night and then got up at 6:30 to reach the venue by 8:00. We only properly caught up on sleep after the competition. But it was worth it.
A bit of fun to finish: this time the Junior party was held in the museum of the fastest train in the world — the Shinkansen, which reaches speeds of up to 320 km/h.
More than 3,500 competitors from more than 40 countries took part.
Snapshots from Nagoya: