The Rescue Line competition consists of building and programming an autonomous robot that can follow a path consisting of various distractors like speed bumps, up-hills and down-hills, seesaw, intersections, U-turns, obstacles and debris and pick up a rescue kit. The robot has to then go into an evacuation zone, place the rescue kit in the rescue area and save the victims trapped inside the evacuation zone. Finally, the victims should be placed in the evacuation area. All of this has to be done in less than eight minutes.

The competition in Rome is spread over three days. The first two days are the play-offs and the third one is the final. Savio College participated with two teams this year – Team George – Sven Livori, Matteo Cassar Darmanin and Julian Baldacchino and Team Roberto – Juan Micallef, Grant Ciantar Lautier, Matthias Pullicino and Jean Sant. This year there were a total of twenty teams in the competition, ten of them made it to the final. In the play-offs, the Savio College teams placed second and fourth. In a very emotional final, Team Roberto placed fifth due to an unfortunate failure of a colour sensor whilst team George won the competition.

Ninety per cent of the robots are 3D printed, with the design of the brackets done by the students and printed using the 3D printers we have at the school. The wiring and soldering of the basic parts such as switches and sensors, together with programming were done by the students. The students worked hard during, but mostly after school hours during holidays and weekends to finish the robots. All the students’ work was discussed and monitored by the Robotics and Computing teacher, Mr Charles Axisa, who constantly supported the students in this competition and during the work sessions during and after school hours. The preparation for this competition started in September 2021 at the beginning of the scholastic year.

The team was also accompanied by Ms Elaine Scorey, a Geography and a History teacher who made the stay in Rome more interesting by preparing special cultural tours for the students to places like Colosseum, Imperial Forums, Caracalla Baths, the Vatican and Castel Sant’Angelo.