The ninth year of the high school competition was won by Roboti@FSI students of the Smíchov Secondary Industrial School and Grammar School, just like last year. On the final day, a total of ten teams from all over the country gathered at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Brno University of Technology. And once again, a tricky competition task awaited them.

"The task awaiting the finalists was to build a robot that can place dominoes next to each other without them falling. In addition, we have a random element, which is the arm of a collaborative robot, which lays cubes. And at the same time, the teams can harm each other and knock their rivals‘ blocks over with their robots," explains one of the organizers of the competition, Ondřej Richter, who studies mechatronics at the Faculty.

It is the Mechatronics Laboratory team that organizes the traditional competition for high school teams. After the qualification rounds, which take place remotely, there were ten final teams from all over the country, which arrived in Brno on Friday, January 26.

Photo: Václav Koníček, Brno University of Technology

Among them was the team Proposition: Infinity. While Adam came from the Secondary School – Technical Training Centre in Uherský Brod, the other three members Mike, Honza and Jakub arrived from the Secondary Technical School in Trutnov. "We do similar activities in our free time, we have a mechatronics club at school, where we do our projects, so we already have experience with it," says Honza, who for a while interrupts the team meeting about the next steps. It's been about an hour and a half since the contestants learned the assignment of the final task, and now they have space to design, build and program the robot that – in their opinion – should perform best in the fight.

In the afternoon, the teams with the finished robots plunged into the final battles. They usually include some type of combat, and this year was no different. "We know from experience that it makes the final more fun. And we added a collaborative robot as a special element," explains Richter, while evaluating this year's final task. "We have chosen a relatively complex assignment. However I myself am often surprised by the solutions that students come up with. In this case, the mechanical part is probably the most challenging: figuring out how to lay the domino so that it doesn't fall off, and at the same time navigate in the playing field," he adds.

In the end, the guys from Proposition: Infinity did very well and won the imaginary bronze medal. The best result in the final was achieved by the robot of the DSSG team from the Smíchov Secondary Technical School and Grammar School, who also won the competition last year.

The competition was traditionally held with the support of Garrett Motion Czech Republic s.r.o. In addition to material prizes, the best-placed teams also received a waiver of entrance exams to the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Brno University of Technology.

And how did all the participating teams perform?

Order	Team name	School
1.	DSSG	Smíchov Secondary Industrial School and Grammar School
2.	Absolute42	Secondary School of Industry and Arts Hodonín
3.	Proposition: Infinity	Secondary School Trutnov and Secondary School – Technical Training Centre Uherský Brod
4.	autistic_outpoints	Secondary Technical School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, České Budějovice
5.	Olomoucká	SŠTE Olomoucká
6.	Opozdilci	SŠPU Hodonín, Technical Lyceum
7.	Hlavu na ořechy máme	Grammar school Třinec
8.	TSJ	VOŠ a SPŠ Žďár nad Sázavou
9.	Drátíci	Secondary School of Technology and Business Brno, Olomoucká
10.	SŠTE 4cyklus	Secondary School of Technology and Business Brno, Olomoucká