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5 - 9 September 2023

Between 5 and 9 September 2023, the city of Gdańsk, Poland, hosted the 8^th edition of EuroSkills European Championship, the greatest European event dedicated to education, professional training and excellence in trades. Organized by WorldSkills Europe every two years, EuroSkills offers the best-trained young people all over the continent a once-in-a-lifetime chance to compete in order to become Europe’s best in their field. At this year’s edition, 600 young people from 32 countries lined up at the start. The Romanian delegation competed in 7 of the 43 sections, with 5 out of the 10 competitors obtaining Medals of Excellence.

As always, Mechatronics was one of the most interesting, challenging and complex sections. It was attended by young people from 18 countries, namely England, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, France, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Hungary.

Most of the teams are trained for two or three years by experts within specialized FESTO training centers that have absolutely all the facilities, equipment, materials and supplies necessary to cope with the high level of Euroskills and Worldskills competitions. The teams consist of two members up to 25 years of age.

At this year’s edition, under the aforementioned section, Romania was represented by a team of students from Transilvania University of Brașov.

Graduates of the bachelor’s study programme Mechatronics, Faculty of Product Design and Environment, admitted in July 2023 to the master’s study programme Mechatronic Systems for Industry and Medicine, Mihai Cristian COSMA and Adrian CORBOȘ are the two students who brought Romania the first Medals of Excellence, which they were awarded with in this prestigious competition.

Over the course of three days, the teams mechanically, electrically and pneumatically assembled FESTO automated mechatronic modules and stations; programmed and commissioned them; made the necessary applications for the programmable automata controlling the stations and the graphical interfaces for the control panels; tested them; identified defects and solved them; and eventually optimized the whole operation process.

The heavy workload, as well as the high complexity of the systems and of the application requirements were real challenges for all teams.

At the end of the three competition days, the Romanian team succeeded in accumulating 704 points on the Worldskills scale, which allowed it to rank 8^th out of 18 countries and to obtain Medals of Excellence at its very first participation in this European Championship, thus outranking prestigious teams such as those of France, Sweden, Spain, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Norway, Lithuania and Slovenia. This achievement proves that in Romania and at Transilvania University of Brașov, excellent training is provided in the field of Mechatronics and that there are talented young people and very good professionals.

The training activities for the Romanian team took place within the Centre for Excellence Training in Mechatronics, Faculty of Product Design and Environment, Transilvania University of Brașov, under the coordination of Prof. dr. Eng. Luciana CRISTEA, Prof. dr. Eng. Marius Cristian LUCULESCU and Lect. dr. Eng. Leonard Gabriel MITU.

Furthermore, the participation in EuroSkills 2023 Gdansk Championship was a good opportunity to exchange experience and to promote Transilvania University of Brașov and Romania, as well as an important stage in terms of the preparation for participating in WorldSkills Lyon 2024 International Championship.

The support for Romania’s Mechatronics team is provided by Transilvania University of Brașov and Festo Romania company,alongside important partners from the economic environment alongside important economic partners, such as Siemens Industry Software, Miele, Raptronic, Auconsys, Assembla Engineering, IFM Electronic, ASTI Automation, Normandia, Premium Aerotec Romania, Insulheat, and more.