Kid Willy evolves and aims to be the fastest in RoboCup 2023

UANL High School students will participate in the RoboCup 2023 International Robotics Tournament with their robot Kid Willy. They will seek to be champions in the Rescue Maze category.

For a year, students from Preparatoria 20 of Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon have been working on the development of Willy. Thus, the robot went from being Willy Junior to being called Baby Willy and sometime later to being named Kid Willy.

After months of evolution and improvements in performance and design, the android is ready to compete in the 26th edition of the RoboCup 2023 International Robotics Tournament to be held from July 4 to 10 in Bordeaux, France.

Rescue Maze

Mechanical cleverness and a Lego-based structure characterize Kid Willy, the machine designed to traverse ramps and stairs at high speed.

“We are going to compete in the Rescue Maze category. This category requires our robot to go through as much of the maze as possible in the shortest time and, along the way, it has to detect both colored and lettered victims, and when it detects a victim, depending on the color, it will shoot kilts, make a sound, or turn on a light,” said Frida Torres, Kid Willy’s mechanic.

On April 27th, the Mexican Robotics Tournament was held in Xalapa, Veracruz. In this meeting, the team, along with 3 other teams from UANL High School 7, CIDEB, and the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, won first place, which gave them a pass to the international meeting.

“We still do not believe that we are going, but we feel anxious to know that we are representing Mexico. We hope to do our best and we know that if we don’t win, we are winners by being there,” said Frida Angelica.