Students from around the world have begun arriving in Abu Dhabi to participate in the 8th International World Robot Olympiad (WRO) 2011 from November 18-20. Over the course of the week more than 1,500 students in addition to coaches, chaperones, and VIP delegates will be arriving into Abu Dhabi to participate in the competition.

One of the first delegations, consisting of two teams and four chaperones, arrived from Germany on Saturday, November 12th. The participating teams will include the high school team “LEGOMANIA” and the junior high team “Team Blue NXT”. The delegation has spent their time on excursions, exploring the sights of the UAE, including: the National Museum, Al Ain Oasis, the camel market, and Jebel Hafeet.

“It is important that our pupils not only see the competition, but also see the country and the people living here, they should get an image of the country and history of Abu Dhabi and the UAE,” Karl-Heinz Scholz, coach of the LEGOmania team, said.

“My first impression of Abu Dhabi is that it is very developed,” Simon Frubis, team member on LEGOMANIA, said. “From the WRO we hope that we can meet with people from other countries, interact with them and become friends.”

“It is a very different culture and we want to integrate,” his team member Felix Hasselwander added, pointing to the traditional Emirati headscarves they boys were wearing.

The German delegation expressed their excitement about participating in the upcoming competition and in continuing to develop their technical and logical thinking skills through the WRO platform.

“I think robotics is the future, robots are as important as the automobiles now,” Scholz said.

Dr. Najla Al Naqbi, Program manager at ADEC, said: “We are looking forward to welcoming students from all over the world and showing them our well-known hospitality. The WRO is a great way for youth from around the world to learn about our country and our culture, especially as we approach the celebration of the 40th National Day of the UAE.”

The WRO is one of the largest international robotic competitions for students, who compete in teams to assemble robots that will participate in challenges to solve a specific problem. The WRO platform allows young students to learn and apply their knowledge in science, engineering, math and computer programming to build an intelligent robot.

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