At the 2023 FIRST Championship in Houston—a competition event for youth robotics serving 192 teams from 23 countries—all four participating teams from Romania received awards.

Among these was AutoVortex, based at Colegiul National de Informatica "Tudor Vianu” in Bucharest, who received third place for the Control Award in the Edison Division—in recognition for their robot programming—as well as first pick for the “Finalist Alliance” in the Edison Division—in recognition of their alliance with two teams from the United States and Israel. The AutoVortex team scored particularly well within the categories of software innovation for increased functionality, autonomous functions of the robot, and mechanical systems improvement. The coordinator of AutoVortex credits WaveStudio and the Pastel Association as crucial to the success of their competing robot, RoboWave. The success found at the FIRST Championship is not a new experience for the AutoVortex Team, who won medals in South Korea, India, and Romania throughout the past competition season.

We are proud of their achievement and happy to have financed $7,500 of the $15,000 AutoVortex needed to participate in the FIRST Championship and wish them well at their upcoming international competitions: the Maryland Tech Invitational in the United States (June  20-25) and the World Robotics Championship in Australia (July 15-17).

Alongside AutoVortex, three other Romanian teams competed at the FIRST Championship, with great success: the TechnoZ team from Pitesti was a Design Award Finalist in the Ochoa Division, the Peppers team from Iasi was a Motivate Award Finalist in the Franklin Division, and the Ro2D2 team from Ploiesti was a Motivate Award Winner in the Jemison Division.