SINGAPORE: The Wor­ld Robot Olympiad opened in Singapore on Wednesday with hundreds of international students, some as young as eight, set to compete using automatons to solve real-world problems.

The annual competition, which began in 2004 in Singapore and was held in Turkiye last year, highlights the importance of technology and science in improving daily lives, usi­ng the inventive spirit of young students.

Organisers said 594 teams, comprising 1,571 participants from 91 countries, have registered for competitions to be held on Thursday and Friday on the theme “The Future of Robots”.

The theme “explores the way robotics can help solve global challenges and imp­rove our lives”, according to a fact sheet issued by the organisers.

Contestants aged bet­ween eight and 22 have all advanced from local and national qualifiers to compete on the global stage.

One challenge them to “build and programme a robot that solves challenges on a field” that cha­n­ges randomly for each rou­nd to allow the mac­h­ines to make independent decisions.

Robots will duel each other in “double tennis” in the “RoboSports” category, while participants in another category will “develop a robot project that helps solve real-world problems”.

Another category for 14 to 22-year-olds involves autonomous driving, with teams instructed to “build a steering-drive robot to navigate a track independently”.

Published in Dawn, November 27th, 2025