4 days of hard work

4 days of frustration

4 very long days in school

…but also…

4 days of fun

4 days of very interesting and motivating speeches

and finally more or less 4 days of success

…that was the ECER 2012 (25.04.2012 – 28.04.2012) – the first "Botball"-Conference in Austria and for that matter in Europe as well.

But what's Botball? - Botball is an American educational program for upper secondary schools with the goal to inspire students for research, technology, engineering and math. The Botball educational robotics program includes a team-oriented robotics competition based on National Science Education Standards and now takes place every year. By planning, developing, programming and documentation of their robots, young people can experience science, engineering, technology and mathematics. Every year there is a predefined set of allowed robot parts like motors, sensors, Lego and metal parts to design and build a robot which then can successfully solve specific competitive tasks autonomously.

I think that especially Prof. Gottfried Koppensteiner, the head of the ECER was very excited whether or not the first ECER will be successful and if the students from Austria will have fun.

But there was this unique spirit...

...the teams who came from everywhere in Austria always helped each other and also the "All girls team" from the U.S. (California) was very impressed of the friendly people at the ECER. They said that in the U.S. the Botball-Competitions are totally different – there’s much more space for the participants to work on their robots and in the TGM we sat together in only one big room the Exner-Saal. Everybody could see what the other teams are doing and how their robots look like.

But that didn’t matter – it was a special experience for everyone and a memory I and I think everybody else don’t want to miss.

For me it was a feeling of being special; having the opportunity to participate in such a competition with such awesome people and such high quality speeches. My team “M.A.R.V.I.N.” and I were very excited not only because of the tournaments also due to the speech we held and the Onsite-Presentation at which you have to describe your Team structure, your robots and the whole development process to Steve Goodman and David Miller from the KISS-Institute where Botball was founded.

At least I have to say again that it was awesome to participate in such a contest and to meet such great people.

I’d like to thank Prof. Gottfried Koppensteiner for giving us the chance to get this great experience and for bringing Botball to Austria. I’d also like to thank Prof. Johannes Hofmann who led us to this competition and supported us.

For more information please visit the ECER-Homepage - ecer12.pria.at

and for information about the Botball-program please visit www.botball.org

MARKUS RYGL, 4BHETR