Happy Friday, RoboEngineers!
Last time, we recapped the Playoffs of The 2023 FIRST Global RoboCo Challenge (FGRC23). This time, we’re recapping the Finals' results, which aired on YouTube and Twitch on March 4th, 2023.
What Happened Before
In case you haven’t been keeping up with FGRC23, here’s a brief recap within a recap.
The FIRST Global RoboCo Challenge is a virtual challenge that tasks teams worldwide with playing RoboCo on their computers, capturing their best attempts at each round. There are three rounds in total – Qualifiers, Playoffs, and Finals.
In the Qualifiers, 44 teams competed to see who could build the best vacuum robot in Tippy Toe Tidy Up. In the Playoffs, 24 teams competed to see who could build the best gardening robot in Chrome Thumb. Only eight of those 24 teams advanced to the Finals.
The FGRC23 Finals
Last time, the Finals took place in Wood and Chips. This year, the Finals took place in Across the Goo, where players had to build the best goo-stopping robot.
Not only did they have to stop a chemical link, but they also had to open a laboratory, throw a shoe into the goo, and water a foreboding plant! This led to some incredible creations like the robot shown below.
If you’re interested in seeing more creations as well as who was crowned this year’s Season Champion, we encourage you to watch our broadcast of the Finals on YouTube.
For those that don’t mind spoilers though, continue reading!
FGRC23 Season Champion
The competition between the Top 8 Teams was incredibly steep. In fact, the difference between the Season Champion and second place was only a little over 200 points! In fact, almost every team managed to solve every objective, meaning that the winner was determined by who had the lowest-cost robot.
In third place was Team Hope with 31,623 points. Team Algeria, last year’s Season Champion, took home second with 31,918 points.
And first place went to….Team Lebanon with 32,145 points!
We also had rewards for Most Efficient, Most Aesthetic Robot, Most Creative Robot, and Most Elegantly-Engineered Robot. Most Efficient Robot was decided mathematically by dividing the cost of the robot by the number of objectives and secrets they completed, while judges decided the other rewards.
Most Efficient Robot:
Gold - Team Portugal (Gagobot - Qualifiers)
Silver - Team Seychelles (Pochitabot - Qualifiers)
Bronze - Team Lebanon (Amiga Eco - Finals)
Most Aesthetic Robot:
Gold - Team Columbia (Teddy - Qualifiers)
Silver - Team Syria (Mutqin - Qualifiers)
Bronze - Team Burkina Faso (CleaningGoat - Qualifiers)
Most Creative Robot:
Gold - Team Bulgaria (Super Acho - Playoffs)
Silver - Team People’s Republic of China (RoboFamily - Finals)
Bronze - Team Keyna (Jungu-Bot V1.0 - Qualifiers)
Most Elegantly Engineered Robot:
Gold - Team Ukraine (Elysian Gora - Finals)
Silver - Team Slovakia (BUMBL3BEE - Qualifiers)
Bronze - Team Libya (Hollow - Playoffs)
And that’s it for this week’s devblog! We hope you enjoyed learning more about our forays into the world of digital robotics and esports. We also want to shout out our collaborator, FIRST Global, for another great year of fun! You can learn more about them on their website.
Special thanks to Dean Kamen and The DEKA Foundation for their generous support of the FIRST Global RoboCo Challenge!
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