When?
16.08.2020 – 11.10.2020

Robot champions 2020 starts in August!

The popular Robot champions (in Finnish Robomestarit) TV-series returns in the autumn. In Robot Champions school children and youth compete in versatile robotics and programming challenges. This year there are three teams: Bittipolliisit from the city of Oulu, Koodikarhut from the city of Kontiolahti and Virtaluupit from Lohja.

Yle, a Finnish public service media company, is working together to produce the show with Innokas Network which is in charge of designing the challenges for the program. The Innokas Network is coordinated from the Faculty of Educational sciences at the University of Helsinki. The Robotics Society in Finland and the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences at the Tampere University are also collaborating on the show. In addition the program showcases how robotics and automation is utilized in several Finnish companies.

The program structure

Robomestarit 2020 consists of four segments: 1. Develop, 2. Build, 3. Code and 4. Battle.

The develop-segment is similar to the programs first season’s Freestyle weekly challenge. At the filming of the previous week the teams receive a weekly challenge. On the day of filming they bring a ready robot to the studio to be showcased in the episode.

The build-segment will be carried out in the studio during filming. The teams will receive ready-made basic bots for their disposal. In the first build-segment the teams have 30 minutes to build an additional part to the robot according to a given challenge.

In the code-segment teams are given a programming challenge that has to be performed in the studio in 30 minutes. The teams will program using the robots they built in the build-segment. The challenge can for example be a line-following task, where the teams have to program their robot to follow a white line on a black surface from point A to point B.

In the Battle-segment the teams own remote-controlled battlerobots will compete in a hexagon shaped arena. The teams will build battle robots based on guidelines that will be remote-controlled so that one team member will control the robot and the other the additional parts such as a ball gun and hammer.

Tutor student

A tutor student a few years older than the team members will be supporting the teams during filming. The tutor will not participate in building or programming the robots but can if necessary subtly give hints toward the right direction in problem situations.

Judging

A Tampere University student and a representative of a collaborating company of each weekly challenge will serve as judges.

Fans

The viewers can allocate fan-points to the teams through the Galaxi app (Google Play, Apple Store), and follow the teams also on Instagram (@bittipolliisit, @koodikarhut ja @virtaluupit).

Program dates

The 30 minute episode will air on Sundays at 9.28am (Galaxi, YLE TV2 ja YLE Areena).

Introductory episode: 16.8.2020 (10 min)

Episode 1: 23.8.2020

Episode 2: 30.8.2020

Episode 3: 6.9.2020

Episode 4: 13.9.2020

Episode 5: 20.9.2020

Episode 6: 27.9.2020

Episode 7: 4.10.2020

Episode 8: 11.10.2020