ABSTRACT
The work presented in this Full Paper is categorized as Innovative Practice, as per FIE guidelines. Robofest is a worldwide robotics competition program for students in 4th-12th grade and college. Student teams design, construct, and program their autonomous robots in a variety of competition categories. In the 2019-2020 academic year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we designed an innovative and novel online robotics competition format using Zoom Webinar tools rather than cancelling the world championship competition. The purpose of this paper is to show how we designed, implemented synchronized online robotics competitions, and to analyze the results and efficacy of the Robofest Online World championships (ROWC). One hundred and fifty-three teams comprising of 360 students competed in three age divisions and six categories held weekends from Aug. 28 through Oct. 10, 2020. Most teams set up playing fields at home and we trained judges online prior to the competitions. We sent the description of an unknown game ending task and unknown playing field factors to local volunteer judges at the same time just before the 30-minute work time on the competition day. After checking to make sure that all the teams were ready to play, we sent the game start signal to all the teams at the same time through Zoom. The local judges scored the runs and submitted videos to the Robofest office for score verification. Robofest office staff also proctored the competitions through Zoom screens for fair competition results and maximum learning opportunities. It was an innovative practice of using online conference tools to organize the world's first unique "synchronized" online autonomous robotics competitions for engineering and computing education. Anonymous coach & judge survey results after the ROWC showed that the satisfaction rate was better than the in-person competition surveys of previous years. Additionally, 95% of students surveyed after the ROWC exposure said that they would now consider a career involving STEM versus 91% of students surveyed after the 2019 in-person competitions.