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Robotics & Entrepreneurship Competition in Greece "Plaisiobots"

Robotics & Entrepreneurship Competition in Greece "Plaisiobots"
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Plaisio Computers

Plaisio, with 55 years of experience, is one of the most steadily growing, purely Greek companies and holds a leading position in the technology sales sector. The company, always guided by sustainable development, has achieved:

-For the Environment (E):

  • 430k Investment in Solar Panels
  • 96% Increase in recycling amounts comparing to the previous year
  • Installation of a Building Management System (BMS) in our store in Metamorfosi to control all the electromechanical systems of the building
  • Partial fleet replacement with hybrid technology vehicles and expansion of charging stations
  • Promote and offer a wider range of sustainable products 

 

-For the Society (S):

  • Organizing for the second consecutive year the Plaisiobots robotics competition aiming to promote and enhance innovation in Greek education. The prize for the winning team was a 5-day educational visit to CERN in Switzerland.
  • For the 5th consecutive year, Plaisio supported the work of the Panhellenic Association of Women with Breast Cancer "Alma Zois" by participating in the Race for the Cure
  • In the beginning of new school year, our volunteer team "Plai Sou", in collaboration with the organization "Together for Children" and with significant contributions from consumers, collected and donated 11,732 school supplies to children in need.

 

-For the Governance (G):

  • Zero confirmed incidents of corruption or bribery
  • Zero reports of whistle-blowing procedure
  • Adoption of 22 policies and procedures
  • Zero incidents of personal data breaches

 



Objective Action

The series of Open Call Robotics and Entrepreneurship Competitions “Plaisiobots” are implemented as part of Plaisio's social project, which aims to integrate technology in education. The aim of the Contests is for participants to experience all the stages of implementing an idea. From the initial thinking and design of the idea to the construction and programming of a final prototype that can go into production, linking for the first time the concept of STEM EDUCATION (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics with that of entrepreneurship.

 

 

Target Audience

 

Duration

The initiative is in progress, as the program has already been announced  for the third Open Call Robotics and Entrepreneurship Competition "Plaisiobots: The Race 3.0"for the third consecutive year, which is addressed to students of High School from the first to the second grade. The theme of this year's competition was based on the axes of the 11th  Goal of United Nations (UN) with topic: "Robots for sustainable cities and communities", with the prize being a trip to California, specifically to the University of San Diego. The winning team will have the opportunity to meet and talk to leading professors and researchers from the university and visit innovative technology startups. During the months of May and June, online courses are held, and from June to December, live training will be held in the participants' cities with free courses from the partner training centers. Τhe grand final is expected to be held in December 2024 and the prize of the trip is expected to take place in April 2025.


Description

 The "Plaisiobots" team was created in 2020 on the initiative of CEO of Plaisio, Mr. Konstantinos Gerardos and consisted of children of the Group's associates, with dreams, goals and a strong willingness for knowledge and innovation. It is a team that was born from scratch and reached the top by representing Greece at the International Robotics Olympiad (IROC) 2021, in Daegu, South Korea, in the competition "Robot: The Future Transportation", winning the Gold Medal. Totally 60 teams from all over the world participated in the competition, with Greece winning the first place thanks to the creativity and talent of the children who built "Buddy the Cane". It is a robotic cane, aimed at people with visual impairments.          

The admirable win of the Greek team highlights the vision of Plaisio Computers, which is to provide young people with the right tools to achieve their goals.

Thus, in 2021, Plaisio, triggered by the above initiative and wanting to give the opportunity to other young people, pupils, and students, to test their skills in robotics, organized the 1st Open Call Robotics and Entrepreneurship Competition “Plaisiobots: The Race”, in order to highlight robotics and its application in the context of entrepreneurship. High school students and university students were eligible to participate in the competition, presenting robotics prototypes and innovative ideas in teams, with a theme for the school teams: "The robot: an educational tool" and for university teams: "The robot assists humans in their work". Targeted webinars were held by people from the business and technology world to better assist the teams. The goal was for all teams to succeed in presenting a robotic prototype in the final of the competition.    

With the main objective of promoting and strengthening innovation in Greek education, Plaisio organized for the second consecutive year the Open Call Robotics and Entrepreneurship Competition "Plaisiobots: The Race 2.0", on how robotics can help people's everyday life, in which more than 600 students from 16 cities in Greece participated. It was a unique way for students to understand science, robotics, programming, and automation. A total of 58 teams and over 200 students qualified through tests and assessments, under the guidance of World Robotics Champion Diana Voutirakou,  and the partner Robotics Education Centers that undertook the training in 16 cities in Greece, presented their innovative ideas to the jury, which was composed of prominent scientists in robotics and entrepreneurship, who have been well-known for their educational work, as well as to the initiator of the competition and CEO of Plaisio, Mr. Konstantinos Gerardos.

“Plaisiobots: the Race 2.0" acts as a springboard for a new generation of visionary engineers, enabling them to think critically, solve complex problems and expand their creative horizons.

 


more...

Impact on Society

In the 1st Open Call Robotics and Entrepreneurship Competition, a total of 5 school teams and 5 university teams were selected, after a year of preparation and implementation of ideas, to reach the final. Throughout the competition, the teams participated in online educational seminars and 1-1 mentoring sessions by distinguished speakers, the World Robotics Champion Diana Voutirakou and Plaisiobots. Two school teams, "N'visioN" and "Glaũx" and one university team, "Engibeers", won 1st place and managed to win the trip and a unique opportunity to meet the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Boston's technology companies. Particularly, members of the “N'visioN” school team, inspired by a presentation they attended on cardiopulmonary resuscitation at their school, created a robotic simulator of the human body, which is called “Anestis”, and a model of a defibrillator. Their goal was to properly educate students about CPR and defibrillation without the presence of an instructor. Using sensors, the trainee's technique is tested and real-time data are sent to the trainee via Bluetooth and audio messages.   The members of the school team “Glaũx”, inspired by Nefeli, who suffers from severely reduced distance visual acuity (albinism), built a device that allows the student to read better the information marked on the teaching board, in order to better participate in the educational environment. It uses computer vision and machine learning techniques to convert the content of the whiteboard into an image, which is projected onto an eye visor that is attached to the glasses.Members of the university team “Engibeers” created a support system for visually impaired people through audio instructions. Airis, as they call it from the terms Artificial Intelligence and Iris, analyses the user's 'visual' field and provides audio information, answering each question. The device consists of a custom-made 3D printed pair of glasses with a built-in camera, a micro-computer (Raspberry Pi) and a pair of Bluetooth headphones to communicate with the user.

In the 2nd Open Call Robotics and Entrepreneurship Competition "Plaisiobots: The Race 2.0", participants took part in the theoretical programming tutorials held online with Diana Voutirakou, the world champion in robotics, answering exercises and tests. Based on their evaluation and scoring, 200+ students advanced to the next phase of the competition. On the practical side, 58 teams from February 2023 trained in person and prepared their projects with the help of the partner robotics centres, making their ideas real, in order to answer the competition theme "How robots improve human life". The “Robohandy” team from Agrinio, having as an idea a life-size prosthetic robotic hand, which is operated by its user with voice commands, managed to emerge as the winner of the final and travel to Switzerland to live a unique experience, having access to the largest European Laboratory of Nuclear Energy and Particle Physics "CERN". Prizes were also awarded to the next two teams. Τhe “FA Project” team from Patras, created a system to control the provision of aid to each farmer and cultivator, with the aim of reducing waste and making better use of available resources, and took the second place winning a gift voucher of 1000 euros. In the third place with the eye muscle training system for people with strabismus was the “Trainer Eyes” team from Serres, which also won a 1000-euro gift voucher.

This initiative constitutes a modern learning environment that is predominantly characterized by teamwork, interaction, creativity and collaboration and provides stimuli for young people to engage with new technologies.

                     



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