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Faculty News Hosting the 13th Nadav Shoham An Open Mind at
Robotraffic Competition Open House

SAFET Y At the beginning of March, the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering PRESENTING Hundreds of
held the 13th Nadav Shoham Robotraffic Competition, a unique – and prospective students attended the
uniquely Israeli – robotics competition, dedicated to imparting safe driving Faculty of Mechanical Engineering’s
knowledge and skills, to reduce the involvement of young drivers in traffic open day in January. The event was
accidents. led by faculty dean Prof. Alon Wolf,
The competition, an initiative of the Leumi Robotics Center at the faculty, Prof. Moran Bercovici, Prof. Dana Solav
features small, portable car-like robots, operated in an arena simulating a and Assoc. Prof. Carmel Rothschild.
Prospective students enjoyed
road that includes intersections, interesting lectures, including one from
traffic lights, road signs and Prof. Moran Bercovici, who excited the
roadblocks. During the contest, audience with a fascinating talk on the
the robots move autonomously research being conducted in his lab to
and encounter scenarios that develop groundbreaking technologies
imitate real situations on the road, for manufacturing lenses – even in
while trying to avoid accidents space (read more about this research
and obey traffic laws. As part of and the zero-gravity flights that were
working on the competition, the part of it in this issue’s “A Day in the
Robotics Center developed “safe Life” section). The explanation of the
roads,” which are embedded with “Formula Technion Project” was also
sensors that communicate with the robot cars; these roads provide the car received enthusiastically.
with an automatic response to the signals of obstacles and traffic lights.
The competition is named after the late Nadav Shoham, an MSc student
at the Technion who was killed in an avalanche in Nepal. Nadav was an
enthusiastic supporter of tech education: his great love for robotics led him
to establish a robotics class in his former high school, where he dedicated
many hours to guiding students.
This year the competition was held virtually in collaboration with Ytek.
Around 200 high school, middle school and primary school groups from
Israel, the United States, Russia, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Vietnam and
Taiwan participated in the competition.

Faculty Research Day: And A Fascinating Meeting
the Winning Poster Is... With Outstanding Haifa
High School Students
RESEARCHING In November we held a faculty research day
during which graduate (MSc and PhD) and post-doc students INVITING The Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
presented posters of their research. The winners will present hosted 150 outstanding students from leading
on behalf of the faculty at the Technion-wide research day. The schools in Haifa. The event, organized with the Haifa
first-place winner was PhD student Daniel Widerker (advisor: Municipality’s Unit for Excellence, gave students a peek
Prof. Moran Bercovici); second place went to MSc student Amit into what is being done at our faculty and sparked their
Shavit (advisors: Prof. Daniel Rittel and Dr. Keren Shemtov- intellectual curiosity – and their interest in studying at
Yona); and third place went to MSc student Zohar Sahray the faculty. After hearing lectures from Dr. Dana Solav,
(advisor: Assoc. Matthew Suss). The audience choice prize Prof. Moran Bercovici and Prof. Alon Wolf, the students
went to MSc student Yoav Gichon (advisor: Dr. Omri Ram). sat down for a round-table meeting with graduate
students, where they asked all the questions that
crossed their mind and dreamed up plans for the future.
We can’t wait to welcome you as students in the faculty!

8 | MEgazine | Faculty of Mechanical Engineering