Organised annually by the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) in co-operation with education company SEMIA Ltd, Hong Kong, the World Adolescent Robotics Contest (estb.2017) is an annual event staged parallelly with the China Adolescent Robotics Contest (estb.2001). The objective of WARC is to draw participation of primary-secondary school children worldwide to showcase their talents in designing and building robots.
Thirteen-year-olds Rishiraj and Aabir, class VIII students of Vadodara’s Billabong High International and Navrachana schools — ranked among these cities’ Top 5 co-ed day schools in the recent EducationWorld India School Rankings 2019-20 — have been engaged with computer programming and robotics ever since the subjects were introduced to them at the Zepto Learning Institute in Vadodara, where their parents enrolled them four years ago.
Based on the theme ‘smart cities’, this year’s WARC 2019 required contesting teams to design and programme a robot to carry smart light bulbs from the storage area into different rooms (red, blue, yellow, green) of a building, replace fused bulbs and dispose the latter in an environmentally-friendly manner.
Looking ahead, the duo is preparing hard for the qualifying rounds of WRO 2020 scheduled to be staged in November next year. “We hope to expand our knowledge in the field of IT and robotics under the guidance of our mentor Mukesh sir,” says Aabir echoing the sentiments of his teammate.
Good luck!
Paromita Sengupta (Bangalore)