The World Robot Olympiad (WRO) Coming to St. Peters on August 18!

Hello FIRST Teams! Summer is an intermission between the last season competitions and a new season games Kick-off parties approaching this August. We invite all Jr. FLL, FLL FTC, FRC team members and any LEGO Mindstorms/ LEGO WeDo enthusiasts ages 6-18 to take a new challenge and participate in World Robot Olympiad brought to Missouri this summer. Boys & Girls Clubs of St. Charles County and FTC team 13023 STEAMBOTS will be the hosting parties for this exciting STEM/Robotics event.

The World Robot Olympiad (WRO) is a global robotics tournament for young people. Its goal is to bring together young people all over the world to develop their creativity, design & problem solving skills through challenging & educational robot competitions and activities. First held in 2004 in Singapore, it now attracts more than 20,000 teams from nearly 60 countries. LEGO Mindstorms NXT/EV3 and LEGO WeDo/ WeDo 2.0 from LEGO Education are basic sets to build competition robots.

The competition consists of 4 different categories: Regular, Advanced Robotics Challenge, Open and Soccer/Football. The Regular and Open categories consist of four different age groups: LEGO WeDo 2.0, Elementary, Jr. High and Sr. High. Participants below the age of 9 are considered LEGO WeDo group, age 12 and under are considered as Elementary, participants from ages 13 until 15 years old are considered Junior High, and participants between 16–18 are considered Senior High. Participants can also compete outside their age group, but they must be younger than the specified age range and must partner up with someone in that age range. For example, a 12-year-old participant can join the Junior High sub-category only if teamed up with someone between 13 and 15.

Teams must create a robot which can complete a specified mission determined by the organizer and usually based on the Open Category theme. This year's theme is Food Matters.

Before the Regular category competition begins, the robot must be fully dismantled down to LEGO pieces (for example, the batteries must be taken out of the brick or the tires must be taken out from the wheels). It must be built in a specified time (150 minutes) before the first qualification round begins. If a team finishes building their robot before the 150 minutes finish, the team can have practice runs on the competition field/ mat according to their age group. Each robot is restricted to be 25 × 25 × 25 cm (9.8 × 9.8 × 9.8 in) before the round begins, and may consist of only LEGO certified parts, with specified motors and sensors, identified by the Regular rules competition. It must finish the mission autonomously, within a maximum time of two minutes. Teams are judged on their scores. If two teams' scores are equal, they are judged by their time to the nearest millisecond. There are 3 rounds for each event. Best score counts and gives the teams a chance to qualify for a national competition in Fairmont State University, West Virginia on September 14-15, 2018. The winners from the National Competition will be heading out to Thailand representing USA at the global STEM celebration during the November event (November 16-18th, 2018).

Since it is a new endeavor for us as a host and a participant, we will have only Regular Category events such as LEGO WeDo, Elementary, Jr. and Sr. High. We are not hosting Open, Advanced Robotics Challenge or Soccer /WRO Football events this year.

Teams consists of 2-3 members and 1-2 coaches/mentors. Registration cost $150.00/team to the WRO organization. There is no cost to the Regional event host this year. Registration for a National Qualifier is $250.00. Competition mats cost $80.00 per a mat. Competition mats are unique for each category/age group. Field set us game 724 pieces are purchased only once for $50.00 and will be re-used annually. Teams competing in the same age group can share the mat and set-up pieces.

The competition starts with preliminary rounds to the final judging. Set up is similar to the FLL but there is only 1 robot run per a round. After mission program is activated, the robot can not be touched until its run is over.

This year will be the fifth year of WRO-USA. We hope you will join us in our efforts to make Missouri look great. Let's send more teams to Nationals!

FIRST Teams, we need YOUR Support!

Our event is open to the General Public and Free to attend!

It will be held on August 18th, 2018 in our East Gym entrance from 9:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.

Teams check-in starts at 8:00 a.m

1211 Lindenwood Ave., St. Charles, MO 63301

We invite everyone to attend this so new to Missouri and excited STEM/Robotics event as a competing team or just a spectator curious what it is all about.

To learn more about WRO-USA or to register a team, please visit www.wro-usa.org

Please contact us at 636-688-8553 (Boys and Girls Club) or 636-336-BOTS (2687)

Elena Cook, FIRST teams mentor.

Anya Cook, FTC team 13023 captain.