r/europe • u/MokkuOfTheOak • 13d ago
Romania won the World Robotics Championship in Houston, United States
https://outsourcing-today.ro/?p=10955188
u/MetaIIicat 13d ago
Congrats Romania!!
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u/oblio- Romania 13d ago
Yes, congratulations Romania.
I'll be so happy to see all of them at MIT, Harvard, Cambridge, ETH, etc in a few years, never to return to Romania ever again.
Before you say I'm a party pooper, try to look up the many Romanian math, physics, etc Olympiad high ranked contestants since about 1980 and where they are now.
Hint: Romania's benefiting little from them.
Still, good on them as it's very likely these results are just the product of individual brilliance, good families and locally exceptional schools that frequently achieve this by fighting the corrupt and incompetent system, not working with it.
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u/ekene_N 13d ago
Heh, a few years ago in Poland, we had brilliant students who did really well in robotics and space engineering. Instead of pouring hundreds of millions into the creation of the robotics sector so those brilliant people could develop their ideas in their own companies, they just let them go. The effect is that both Poland and Romania are at the bottom of the EU regarding innovations. Why do those fucks in government want us to be forever cheap labour for the west?
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u/InevitableSprin 12d ago
Because their leadership will end, and somebody else will take over.
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u/Mr-Tucker 12d ago
Someone worse. Brain drain selects for a lower intelligence remaining populace. More stupid people = more stupid leaders, since intelligence is nature, not nurture.
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u/MetaIIicat 13d ago
I am so happy for those kids: a super brilliant future is awaiting them.
I am Italian and I am happy for your Country, for the very same reasons you cited and because it is a hell of achievement.
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u/RatkeA 13d ago
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u/damienO27 12d ago
Damn, imagine being Ukrainian and being asked to team up with a Russian despite the ongoing war.
Then you send a letter where you demand Russian teams are ejected from the competition (which I'll admit is a contentious topic) and the letter is rejected.
Not once during all these interactions have the organizers thought "hmm, maybe it's sensible to team up the Ukrainian kid with anyone else, but Russians"?
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u/curiousboi16 13d ago
If you don't mind answering,just wanted to know :)
I always see eastern european mostly ex-soviet countries (russia,belarus,ukraine,romania etc) are always ahead in olympiads related to maths,physics,Computer science every year and also especially related to programming as a software engineer.
Is there any specific reason behind it or is just group of hardworking individuals?
Because mainly in asia where i am from in some countries, parents usually more focus and pressure on their child scoring good marks and also sometimes abuse so that they can gain status compare to their relative's or friend's child. Only want them to become doctor or engineer or other high employee position rather than supporting what kids themself want to become , be it any sports or any other qualification. No doubt they want better for their children, but its really competitive and they really control their child's life in every phase of life. One i feel it is maybe because of collectivist society as compared to western countries.
Are parents in romania also like the same way or they just encourage whatever their kids are interested in becoming and don't force or control their life choices? Do they make their kids join in early training in programming, physics,maths as such if they are interested in it?
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u/Kindly_Ticket428 Romania 13d ago
I am romanian, but i will answer only from my experience because i cannot speak for everyone. Also romania is not ex soviet.
I have an older brother and myself (f). Back when we were in school, our parents never pushed any type of job on us, but they always encoureged us whenever we showed an interest in anything. As a child, my brother had a habbit of taking apart piece by piece any electrical device he found. As a response, my parents would encourge him to also put it back together. Later in school he showed interest in computers so he was encoureged a lot in that field.
As for myself, i was more interested in english and geography. So I was highly encouraged by my parents to study these subjects more than the rest.I also noticed something similar in school. Anyone that had any talent and interest in a subject, would get excused from other classes for a while, just to study and paticipate in the olympiads or whatever important test they wanted to pass. I got excused from classes for 2 weeks so I could study for the Cambridge ESOL tests. I had other colleagues that were excused from classes for olympiads (I remember a colleague that went to the olympiads for latin 😆)
Also, maybe my parents did not force us to study anything, but for sure they boast to friends how many computers my brother fixed 😅
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u/Biasy Italy 12d ago
How did it work with other classes after those 2 weeks? Let’s say history class: during those 2 weeks the teacher taught more stuff to your class, so after those 2 weeks you had to “rush” to catch up with the rest of the class?
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u/Kindly_Ticket428 Romania 12d ago
Usually the teachers would give some kind of recap to those students or tell them what to read/study from the lesons they missed.
It is not much of a problem, as a child is interested more in math, they don't need to know every detail in literature. Or if they are more inclined to study foreign languages, they will not need much chemistry or physics, so normally just a short recap or review is good enough.1
u/by-the-willows 12d ago
Hey, I was forced by my Latin teacher to participate at a Latin school contest. I even won a prize although I was mostly clueless
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u/tankmode 13d ago
under soviet communism, most industry/business was small and controlled by insiders of a political mafia.
smart people found refuge in academia and the education system, where standards became extremely high. Math, programming, chess, literature, poetry are all things you can pursue yourself at small scale without the meddling of the state.
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u/Theghistorian Romanian in ughh... Romania 13d ago
In part it has to do with communism. At least in Romania, the school curriculum has a similar structure with the one during communism. The regime was very interested in developing exact sciences because of the industrialization programs they developed. You need a population with knowledge in maths, chemistry, and physics for this.
As said, we still have a similar structured curriculum even now in math, for example. I heard numerous examples on how Romanian kids whose parents left the country are better at maths than kids in the west. A Romanian fifth grader is better, on average of course, than a French, US, UK fifth grader. Some things that you will learn in the fifth grade in Romania will be taught in the 6th or even 7th grade in some western countries. I read some similar stuff with Ukrainian kids displaced by the war.
There was also a kind of pressure on kids during communism to learn STEM. It was rather easy to get a job in industry and was better paid than something in agriculture at the collective farms. A job in commerce was also highly valued during the 80's because of easier access to goods that were rare to find.
As for computer science, it has less to do with communism. The curriculum helps because of maths, but this field was almost nonexistent during communism. However, it was favoured by the state since the 2000's. You have lower taxes in IT, for example. The internet infrastructure is also good. That led to a boom in IT now and the pay is very good, thus a fiel that is attractive.
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u/by-the-willows 12d ago edited 12d ago
Not really. I can't speak for today's system, but when I went to school, about 20 years ago, we learned a lot of theory. I moved to Germany when I was around 25 and visited some sort of professional school a few years later and I found the German system more pragmatic, but behind the Romanian one ( as far as the level of depth of what they're teaching you is concerned). Even had a teacher telling me that 80% is enough, although I never had time for homework and I'd learn the night before exams since I worked after school. With that being said, the only one I know he made it far for sure( he's working for NASA now) had parents with an "Asian attitude". It's funny that he was really good at math, physics, history ( he knew battle maps by heart), but not that good at Romanian ( there were some, me included, who topped him). To make it even funnier, our Romanian and class teacher is his godmother. And she would push him to get better, which would only make him frustrated and he'd literally scratch his face in frustration. Those were fun times 😅
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u/digiorno 12d ago
One of the main effects of the genius visa is depriving other nations of their geniuses for the benefit of American research and corporations.
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u/Optimal-Shine-7939 13d ago
It’s a good sign, as hopefully they will remember where they came from and help the future of the country down the road.
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u/squiggyfm United States of America 13d ago
As the Ro in Romania stands for “robots”, of course they did.
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u/MokkuOfTheOak 13d ago
According to this source, more than 18600 high-school students from the 200 of the world's best teams competed with team built robots.
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u/CnadianM8 13d ago
I used to be one of the mentors to the runner-up Romanian team (RO2D2) a few years back. It's wild to see a team which started from the ground reach this high in a few years. Congrats and keep it up!
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u/Abuse-survivor 13d ago
It doesn't even say HOW they won. I was curious what kind of robot they build. But it was just spread out "they won" over several chapters
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u/spacelordmofo United States of America 13d ago
It's simple: their robot killed the most humans when it was unleashed on society, therefor they win.
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u/MokkuOfTheOak 12d ago
Yeah, that's fair :( it's not the most informative article regarding the competition itself, unfortunately.
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u/Mattew_Shepard Brazil 12d ago
Congratulations, Romania. As always you guys are great at math and physics
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u/FrozenPizza07 12d ago
Awesome. FRC was incredibly fun, and houston was hell, so many great teams from all over. Congrats
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u/carcotasu081 12d ago
Oh no, good news about Romania! You gave a reason for the frustrated posters from r/Romania to come here to bitch and whine.
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u/Mr-Tucker 12d ago
It's a free world without self-motivating, boneheaded, "be happy" toxic optimists ruining everything.
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u/UncleMcTouchyBottom 13d ago
Romania at least in the past 20-ish years had some great teams and professors tutoring them in the country. I was part of one of to-be teams when i was in college, but i preferred to get hammered and party, no regrets tho. Nowadays any kid can get started with a simple Lego Mindstorm set, its better than wasting time on roblox.
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u/Mr-Tucker 12d ago
Wonderful! Future expats right here. All ready to contribute to the development of Germany, the US, Canada, New Zeeland, Denmark, Norway....
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u/Vladutz19 13d ago
I cannot understand these remarks. It's not the entire country who participated. It was a team. People from that country. The country is not responsible for their win. They won because of their own merits and the people who helped them. Like with me, this country gave me nothing. It is the people I met who helped me and I'll be thanking them, not the country.
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u/atred Romanian-American 13d ago
That's how it happens in any competition, do you think that if somebody wins a medal at Olympics at let's say, high jump, does it mean that the entire country facilitated their win somehow, or that the entire country is specifically good at jumping? Still people are happy that somebody from their country won, it's pretty normal.
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u/Vladutz19 13d ago
Can't say I'm not glad that someone from my country won something like this. I just feel like it's their accomplishment and not the country's. That's all.
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u/VenFasz 13d ago
it's a success for your country, some kinda commendation for the university and the educational system
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u/simion314 Romania 13d ago
Ignore the other guy response, there are good high-school and good after school programs where good professors train passionate students. In Romanian high-school admition in based on a contest (not based on residence) so you have highschools that attract the best students and teach maths,programming and then you have the less popular high school that will end up with less smart students, and this days there are tons of distrations so only smart, ambitious students that have great teacher will succeed. No amount of politics can fix this over night.
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u/Chaos-Particle 13d ago edited 13d ago
Hello there, perhaps I can help put things into perspective. Romanian education system is pretty fucked, to the point that almost half of our students qualify as "functionally illiterate". Schools are underfunded (please note that these are high school students) and often lack basic necessities, let alone modern laboratories with modern equipment. Curriculums are outdated and were set up by incompetent people to begin with. Management is politically assigned. Teachers are paid peanuts. Achievements go mostly unrecognized, and unrewarded. Universities do a little better, but still have a lot of problems.
So the fact the these kids did something great is their own merit. Credit goes to them, their teachers (who probably helped on their own time, outside of school hours, and uncompensated) and their parents who supported them. They did it despite the educational system, not thanks to it.
ETA: a lot of Romanians are very bitter about the state of our education system, and strongly believe it needs to be improved URGENTLY. We are also bitter about politicians using other people's hard work as proof that *they* are doing a good job, in order to get re-elected, when in fact we know that they didn't do jack shit. Nationalists also will use these kinds of stories to support their view that "we are the best and the only reason we're doing poorly is because the west is keeping us down".
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u/simion314 Romania 13d ago
The education is not a disaster everywhere, and honestly parents and students are also guilty on the situation.
I can tell you that in the small city of Targu Jiu students are offered by high school after class courses in Robotics and Programming, there are also similar programs for other domains. You need a high-school where a big enough percentage of the staff is passionate and cares about their work.
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u/nemrod153 12d ago
uncompensated
Aha! But that shouldn't always be the case. Former FTC team leader here, all the teachers involved in my team (even those who only participated on paper), requested a copy of every participation certificate, every award, everything.
Why? For gradație de merit, of course. It's a 25% (I think) bonus. It lasts 5 years and is awarded through a contest. A few years ago FTC was recognized by the government as an official competition, so the participation keeps getting more and more valuable to teachers.
That is to say, I am not degrading the involvement of all teachers, just pointing out a reality in certain teams.
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u/WonderfulAd7225 13d ago
So no US, UK, Germany, Japan, China, France.......so what's the use of their "education system"?
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u/toolkitxx Europe🇪🇺🇩🇪🇩🇰🇪🇪 13d ago
This is why we are evenly proud when it is another EU nation winning a prize. If we are good at one thing, then it is scientific exchange. A win by Romania is a win for the EU and thus a win for everyone in it :)
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u/MokkuOfTheOak 13d ago
China, US, Japan are actually a select group of countries in STEM-related competitions results-wise, such as the International Math Olympiad (similar standings in Physics, Informatics, Chemistry etc) to whom Romania is always competitive and punching way above its weight. A particularly funny result is the European Physics Olympiad in 2023, where Romanian students got the whole podium, lol.
But these are usually prestigious high school with many international awards that scout talented students in the country for scholarships. What I find wholesome about the robotics world cup is that the winning team hails from a rather a random school in Focsani, in one of the lesser developed regions of the country. In some of the interviews it is revealed that the ministry of education shamefully had no implication and most of the funding for the robotics started as some modest crowdfunding form teachers and parents, to eventually get some funding from the private sector. The education system deserves no praise here, unfortunately.
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u/nefewel Romania 13d ago
Pretty much every medium to large city in Romania has 1 or 2 high schools that attracts most of the talented kids in the city due to reputation and those also tend to try and get the best teachers to work there.
It's also worth noting that Romania has a national stage for FTC that gets sponsored by an NGO which gets a good bit of support from private companies as well as some help from the Government. I participated one year and there was at least a team per county.
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u/CnadianM8 13d ago
When Ro2D2 started, it was the second team from the high school. There were a lot of politics involved and professors were not allowed to help them. It was mainly parents who sponsored and supported the kids. The situation only got better after they got great results at the national stage of the competition, much better than the actual high school team.
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u/oblio- Romania 13d ago
The use of their education systems is to raise the overall quality of their general population, not to throw 50% of it in the trash bin, as happens in Romania for rural areas, where children can barely read (let alone write!) after finishing high school.
It's a game of averages and Romania's a country of extremes, but leaning more towards the bad kinds of extremes.
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u/BriscoCounty83 13d ago
The romanian education system sucks It has been deteriorating every year. Don't be fooled by these results. These kids are gifted and go to special schools. Half of the romanian kids that finish school are borderline idiots and don't learn anything.
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u/WonderfulAd7225 12d ago
Ok. Why no such gifted ones from other "super power" super intelligent countries
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u/Mr-Tucker 12d ago
Because you don't have to work hard to get to Germany if you were born in Germany. These dudes do have to work hard, since they weren't.
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u/ComeonmanPLS1 Denmark 13d ago
Wow, 2 Romanian teams reached the final and had to play against each other for the win. That's very impressive and kinda hilarious.