Romania will be represented at the Michiana Premier Event by the RO2D2 robotics team from "Mihai Viteazul" National High School in Ploiești. This prestigious international robotics competition for high school students will take place in the United States. The RO2D2 team is part of the "100 Youngsters for Romania's Development" campaign, organised at national level by the Dan Voiculescu Foundation for the Development of Romania.
The RO2D2 team's story is one of vision, hard work and world-class performance. This team of high school students was founded in 2018 in a modest laboratory. In a few short years, they have transformed their passion for technology into a force for change, becoming a true ambassador of Romanian excellence in educational robotics. Behind this success are tens of thousands of hours of work, four iterations of robots built from scratch and a team that functions like a genuine start-up: with well-defined roles in engineering, programming, design, strategy and communication. The results were swift and conclusive: RO2D2 won the First Tech Challenge National Robotics Championship, qualifying for the world's biggest robotics event in the US.
In the previous season, the team from Ploiesti won the Inspire 1 Award in Iași for the second year in a row and qualified again for the World Championships in Houston, where they made history. In the USA, Ro2D2 dominated, clinching the Control Award Winner – Ochoa Division, Winning Alliance Captain – Ochoa Division and securing his spot in the World Championship finals. The deciding match was a 100% Romanian final, confirming Romania's position in the robotics world elite. The RO2D2 youngsters stormed back from Houston with the title of vice world champions, triumphantly claiming the top spot after a fierce competition that saw 243 teams from across the globe compete.
RO2D2 is the ultimate model of civic responsibility and community involvement. Each year, young people develop projects with local impact, designed to respond to real needs: an automated irrigation system for the Botanical Garden in Ploiești, remotely controllable; a mobile application that maps monuments designed by architect Toma T. Socolescu, to support cultural tourism; and a smart fish-stocking and water quality monitoring device, already used in museums in Ploiești and Tulcea. RO2Ds definitively show that technology is a tool for progress for society as a whole.
In the summer of 2024, RO2D2 became the first non-U.S. team to win the Maryland Tech Invitational (MTI) - an elite robotics competition. Recently, their efforts were officially recognized by local authorities, with the team being awarded by the Prahova County Council.
RO2D2 is proof that Romania has not only talented young people, but also young people who know how to work, think strategically and build a better future. By signing up to the "100 Youngsters for Romania's Development" campaign, these extraordinary students join a select gallery of visionaries who can write the country's future.
