Raised arms, cheers and incredulous grins! The winners of this year's zdi robot competition could not hug each other, but there was great joy when the winners were announced. Klaus Kaiser, Parliamentary State Secretary in the NRW Ministry of Science, selected the winners via live stream. 

“Over the past year, the health crisis has overshadowed many other issues. With this competition, we wanted to give young people the space to deal with environmental protection in a playful way. And set a wide range of impulses so that young people can help shape their own future," explained Klaus Kaiser, Parliamentary State Secretary in the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia, who honored the winners. He was enthusiastic about the performance of the teams: "So much creativity, but also technical knowledge, always impresses me anew. In the competition, the students not only get to know programming, but also develop solutions independently and at the same time deal with socially relevant topics. And experience at the same time how inspiring teamwork is.”

The team from the municipal grammar school in Rheinbach won the category Robot game in secondary schools. From left to right: Coach Waldemar Wolter, Jasper Königschulte, Jooris Laun and Felix Bölinger. Photo: Std. Gymnasium Rheinbach

The rankings of all teams are published on the MINT community platform:

A special atmosphere can also be felt on the screen

A resume badge on the STEM community platform

Jasper from the Robot Game winning team looks back on an exciting time: “Me and my team had a lot of fun taking part in the competition. During the competition we were able to expand our programming knowledge and also had the opportunity to learn a lot about climate. It's really exciting to be in the final without a preliminary decision and without knowing our opponents beforehand. One more reason why we tried to do our best this year!”

The new MINT community platform helped with the planning and implementation of the competition. The zdi regional office was able to handle both the registration and the coordination of the final. At the end, each participant will receive a badge for the zdi robot competition in their digital CV on the MINT community. And instead of the gold medal, the members of the winning team receive a gold badge.

Second round in September 2021

Thanks to the commitment of the young people, but also the coaches and the zdi networks, the robot competition was a success despite the restricted conditions caused by the corona pandemic. Over 50 teams have registered for the competition.

However, many teams did not have enough time to prepare due to the contact restrictions. You are now participating in the second round in September 2021.

In STEM community platform keeps everyone interested up to date.

In teams students construct and program a Lego Mindstorms robot and take part in state-wide competitions in North Rhine-Westphalia. The aim of the competition is to give the participants a low-threshold and playful access to computer science as well as other MINT professions and courses of study. Since 2006 14 competitions in North Rhine-Westphalia were organized. In total approx. 11.000 students took part. Most of the teams come from grammar schools, followed by junior high schools and comprehensive schools. Since 2016, teams from primary schools have also been admitted to the competition. the girl share averages 35 percent.