Between April 23 and 25, several students from Electronic Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering took part in the 26th edition of the National Robotics Festival – RoboCup Portugal Open. The competition, which brought together universities, research laboratories, and companies, took place at the Municipal Pavilion of Barcelos and was organized by Barcelinhos Secondary School.

The SocRob@Home team, from the Institute for Systems and Robotics, achieved 3rd place in the RoboCup@Home competition, where robots simulate a domestic environment. “The team’s goals for FNR 2026 were mainly focused on testing our new software pipeline. Both the TIAGo robot (Bob) and the team’s software underwent significant upgrades over the past year,” explained Rodrigo Serra, the team leader. In the coming months, the team will focus on optimizing modules such as vision, speech, navigation, and manipulation.

As a result, this competition was an important opportunity to validate what works and what still needs improvement under real testing conditions.

Rodrigo Serra, SocRob@Home team leader

N3E (the Electronic Engineering Students’ Group) competed in the Factory Lite, Factory 4.0, and Dragster categories.

In the Factory Lite category, where robots simulate a factory environment by navigating through codes drawn on the floor, N3E secured 2nd place on the podium. The team highlighted that they faced some challenges with the robot’s operation, managing to implement the official code only on the final day. The robot successfully moved and interacted with the environment, completing the challenge by delivering four boxes.

Manuel Vaz emphasized that the close competition among the teams raised the competitive level in the Factory 4.0 category, where robots also simulate a factory environment but navigate by following lines on the floor. “We tried our best. We delivered five boxes; they were still good points, but since we missed one box, (...) we ended up finishing in 4th place. Anyway, I’m super happy,” he added.

Just being able to compete is already a prize for me.

Manuel Vaz, N3E team leader

The student group also achieved 11th place in the dragster category (a straight-line speed challenge).