While most students were heading off on a well-earned holiday, two SERŠ students — Bojan Potočnik, a graduate of the technical gymnasium, and Matej Drobnič, a graduate of the computer technician programme — achieved the greatest success in the school's history: 1st place in the world in robotics.
Robotics is a field of the future, combining electronics and computer science. The robotics team of the Secondary School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Maribor, SERŠ TEAM, took part in the world championship in building and programming mobile robots, held this year in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Bojan Potočnik and Matej Drobnič, mentored by Professor Miran Waldhütter, competed in the RESCUE B Junior category. The robot's task was to rescue victims of a natural disaster: driving autonomously through a maze representing the disaster site, it had to overcome many obstacles and find the victims using temperature sensors.
Competing against 23 teams from around the world — each of which had to qualify through its national championship — SERŠ TEAM, together with the Hungarian team LegoRockers, won the RESCUE B SUPER TEAM competition, beating many countries far more developed in robotics, including Japan, China, Germany, Portugal and Austria. The tension built right to the very end: SERŠ TEAM secured its exceptional result in the final seconds of the competition.
The Queen of the Netherlands also visited us at the competition.