Manetti Porciatti is still the Italian champion of Robocup Junior Soccer
The Maremma team Go For Broke will represent Italy at the World Championships in July in Holland
They don't have the muscles of Lautaro nor the bank account of the highly paid players of Serie A. They are the robot footballers of the Polo Tecnologico Manetti Porciatti, the school from Grosseto which boasted the national title of Robocup Junior in the Soccer Open category in Verbania, repeating last year's success, and who will represent Italy at the world championship in July in Eindhoven, Holland.
Instead of adductors and calves, they use ringed wheels, they see by means of mirrors and cameras which together with other devices and inventions allow them to kick a colored ball and score spectacular goals that have nothing to envy of those of their human counterparts, all in autonomous manner within the playing field, recognizing the various areas, the goals, dividing the roles into defender and attacker and creating a very complex system from both a hardware and software point of view.
It was a clear path for the Grosseto team which, with the progression of the matches, increased the gap with their opponents, resulting in a resounding 17 to 4 against the home team in the final.
Behind the success that the Go For Broke team has achieved there are always people; teachers and students who also spent the days working in the school laboratories during the Easter holidays. To seal this prestigious result obtained last Saturday, the school director, Claudio Simoni, organized a celebratory moment to which the institutions and sponsors who helped the school cover the expenses of the trip to the shores of Lake Maggiore were invited.
We are proud of you - commented Simoni - because you are proof that where there is application and dedication as well as a good dose of genius and technical-scientific skills, the results arrive. Now, we count on the help of the whole Maremma to leave an indelible mark in Holland, exactly ten years after our last world success, the one in Brazil, when we won the world title.
For his part, Professor Daniele Dattrino, mentor of the team together with Professor Emanuele Formichella, underlined how the strategy adopted and the measures made to the robots were decisive, alongside the great ability of his students in knowing how to update the programming of the software that manages them .
Congratulating the school were the provincial councilor Valentino Bisconti, representing the president Limatola, Gianfranco Cassisa on behalf of the superintendent Gabriele Marini and Giovanni Mascagni, head of the Grosseto delegation of Confindustria Toscana Sud, who invited the new Italian champions of Go For Broke at the Madonnino fair at the Confindustria stand in the Innovation pavilion.
Even the mayor of Grosseto, Antonfrancesco Vivarelli Colonna and senator Simona Petrucci, complimented the students and teachers, attributing to the Polo Manetti Porciatti the undisputed role of reference in the local education system.
The 2024 Italian Robocup Junior champions who built and programmed the two robots are 5EC students Alessandro Di Lorenzo, Lucia Cortino and Ghulio Musaku. In addition to this team, the Rescue Line group composed of Matteo Bernardini from 3EN, Elisabetta Lapi, Stefano Rocchi and Riccardo Brogelli from 4EC also participated.