Eight teams from UAE to compete at World Robot Olympiad finals in Germany this November

The teams were selected from more than 500 teams during four intense days of UAE national qualifiers organised by the Abu Dhabi Department of Education and Knowledge (ADEK).

The eight UAE teams will compete against teams from over 85 countries across four categories – RoboMission, Future Innovators, Future Engineers and RoboSports.

For the 14th year in a row, ADEK led this year’s UAE qualifiers which were held on June 4-6 online and on June 25 in person.

The competition featured students aged 8 to 19, and were challenged to compete under the theme ‘My Robot, My Friend’ to showcase various ways how robots can interact with and help humans.

The annual competition aims to enhance students’ STEM skills, creativity, and problem solving, inspiring a future generation of scientists, engineers, and inventors from around the world.

This year’s local qualifiers saw participation of 512 teams, including 402 teams from public and private schools, 34 teams from charter schools and 76 teams from other institutions such as universities, centers and companies.

In total, 1,800 students from across the Emirates were tasked with using artificial intelligence to design and develop robots that can work with humans toward a better future.

The participants were divided into three age groups: Ages eight to 12 for elementary, 11-15 for juniors and 14-19 for seniors.

Eighty-three judges from across a variety of sectors were carefully tasked to evaluate and select the eight winning teams, each of which will now take part in the WRO finals.