Marta Palau Franco is an electronics engineer, oceanographer and project officer at euRobotics aisbl. She was previously project manager of the EU-funded robotics project SciRoc (www.robotics-league.eu), the European Robotics League (ERL) Emergency Robots and euRathlon (www.eurathlon.eu), which were led by the University of the West of England (UWE) and the Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL). “During my engineering studies I was a member of the robotics team of my university. I learned to build robots and had a lot fun participating in indoor robotics competitions. The community environment and the team-work were terrific! For me robotics competitions are not just for testing a robot outside a laboratory or entertaining an audience. They are events that get people together, inspire younger generations and facilitate cooperation and exchange of knowledge between multiple research groups. Robotics competitions provide a perfect platform for challenging, developing and showcasing robotics technologies.”

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