More than a podium
In any robotics competition, the first thought is natural: who wins?
Kids enter the competition with the desire to do perfectly, coaches want to see their teams succeed, and the excitement of the rankings is part of the game.
And at RuralBots Open Championship it's the same. There will be a champion team, a runner-up and a third place team. The competition has a podium, it has medals and it has the natural stakes of a real competition.
But that's not all.
When you work with children, you quickly realize that the final score says something important, but it doesn't say everything. It doesn't say who stayed calm after a mistake. It doesn't say who encouraged their colleagues when things didn't go right the first time. It doesn't say who kept looking for solutions, who followed the rules without looking for shortcuts, who thought clearly under pressure, or who had the courage to make decisions without waiting for someone else to tell them what to do.
That's why we designed the RuralBots Open Championship to reward not only the final result, but also the way children try to get there.
In addition to the medals for the first three places, the competition also includes a series of special distinctions. They are not a decorative addition or consolation prizes, but part of the way the competition was designed. Because they recognize exactly those things that children learn, practice and build over time in robotics workshops: attention, self-control, perseverance, team spirit, initiative, fair play and strategic thinking.
The fact that teams will receive awards does not mean that results no longer matter. The podium remains a podium. The ranking remains a ranking. But it does mean that each team will be looked at carefully for qualities other than the purely technical ones, and the judges will recognize the quality that became most visible in the way the children competed. In some teams, balance will be seen more strongly. In others, perseverance. In others, collaboration, initiative or the way they built their strategy.
The RuralBots Open Championship does not just aim to gather teams at the start, but to build a certain type of competition culture from the very first edition. One where performance is respected, but where it is not the only thing worth appreciating. One where children understand that it is good to want to win, but equally important is to know how to work with others, to keep your composure, to assume a role and to finish what you started, the way you fight for your chances.
It's likely that in the future, some of the technical skills that children are developing now will change. Technology is changing rapidly, tools are changing, and the things we consider essential today will look different.
But there are also things that don't expire: the ability to collaborate, to remain lucid under pressure, to not give up, to respect rules and people, and to make decisions responsibly.
That's why, even though it's a robotics competition, we choose to also award things that aren't just about robots.
Yes, in a competition you want to win, but the way you compete sometimes says more than where you finish.
RuralBots Open Championship is a competition dedicated to children in grades I-IV, organized by ARTESA, which will take place on June 20, in the gym at Constantin Brancoveanu Vasilati Secondary School.
Being a new competition, we want it to be known not only through the theme of the event or the contest format, but also through the values it highlights from the beginning.