What does it mean to start your own business, innovate or develop an idea in Serbia? Every time I ask myself that question, a story about a team of students with whom 3D Republika has been collaborating for a little over a year always slips between the lines. Struggles on the way to success are something that is standard for the whole world, however, when you add our environment to that struggle, you get incredibly different nuances.
This is a story about heroes
This is a story about invisible people living their ideas. It begins somewhere in the hilly Balkans, in a country where the future cannot be seen from the past and dreams often die as soon as they are spoken. "And what chance do children have?" I hear someone shout from the audience...
The answer to this question is given by one man who is making a breakthrough. Vaso Bjelica is a teacher at ETŠ "Mihajlo Pupin" in Novi Sad, where he formed the section for robotics in 2000, which will open the door to the future for children.
Almost a decade later, I'm sitting at my desk and looking at a picture of a team of 12 members, some of whom started in that very first section of Vasa Bjelica, and formed the M41+ team at the Faculty of Technical Sciences in Novi Sad. In the photo, the beaming faces of twenty-year-olds in team T-shirts in the middle of a large darkened hall. They stand embraced in front of a large table decorated to resemble the surface of another planet. A robot is standing on the table in front of them.
The competition is over, and the result of hard work that lasted for 7 months is the medals they wear around their necks, new knowledge and full hearts.
Here's what their stick and rope fight looked like
Just a year earlier, the M41+ team sat in the silence of the workshop. Exhausted by the struggles of the past years, they decided whether they would continue to fight. Constructing and making something new in a country like this, especially if it is an autonomous robot for competitions, is certainly far more than just a school project.
The lack of funds and support forced our roboticists to manage as they knew how. At one of the first competitions, due to the lack of parts, a pre-tested chair leg helped our team.
Just try to imagine the atmosphere of an international competition in mainland France. A completely cinematic scenario: teams are busy preparing, discussing strategies, making final preparations on their expensive robots. Only the special cameras of the Russian team cost a few thousand euros. The French team brings their robot on a special cart and all members work in white surgical gloves. Faculties that are at the very top of technological progress are competing. They are focused only on the transfer of knowledge to students, with incredible budgets that they invest in those students according to the most modern standards of school curricula.
Among them appear 12 dreamers and a robot with a wooden chair leg and a bunch of string sticking out of it. I don't know if the term "stick and rope" could be better used for anything.
From ridicule to victory and friendship
These boys and girls just want to be a part of the world, to be part of something bigger, to meet their peers and be equal, and they are met with ridicule.
The first match is about to start. The Stick and String robot is on the table. In front of him stands a robot worth a few thousand euros and a team focused on victory. The referee signals the start, the ropes are pulled and the match begins. The rival team's sneer turns to disbelief as "Stack and String" begins to score points. And then the disbelief turns into a dull expression on the faces of the opponents who watch in amazement as our team wins its first victory.
However, the best part of this story comes with the heartwarming congratulations with which opponents become friends, and the M41+ team wins its place among its peers.
Parts for the robot are usually made by grandmothers and uncles, through neighbors, acquaintances, and anyone who is able to provide any support, and the currency of payment is usually a request. There is not enough equipment at the university, and there is not enough money in the budget, so it all boils down to hiring team members and their friends.
Parts arrive sometimes late and sometimes poorly made, so there is no room for error correction. Deadlines cannot be moved and you have to work with what you have, which is often very little.
How can we help such initiatives?
Finances as finances - there are none. One year, a radio from Novi Sad started a campaign to collect money so that the roboticists could finish their project and go to the competition. The collection of money was on the square in Novi Sad. Other students, friends, families and people who collected donations from colleagues in their companies came. They were brought together and united by the idea of a couple of young people traveling with their dreams, to go somewhere further, to be part of something bigger.
Unfortunately, those whose responsibility it was to help, did not do so and in the end put pressure to stop the action "because it's a shame". The determination and inner strength of the M41+ team was strong enough to go to the competition despite this and bring home the victory.
Victory is only the crown of heroism
Turning a vision or idea into reality requires a team, knowledge and coordination. However, it also requires something special: faith, courage, determination, loyalty and courage. In the last almost two years that I have known the M41+ team, I have seen all these qualities in action and I believe that their dreams will always come true.
Despite the odds not going in their favor, fears and lost battles, they always muster the strength to keep going. To me, they are heroes.
There are many more such invisible heroes. If you meet them somewhere, give them your hand and wish them luck.
David Dakovic
Minister for Development of the 3D Republic
