Sri Lankan Students Make Their Mark at Asia Pacific Robot Olympiad in Hyderabad

Four teams of Sri Lankan students have returned from the World Robot Olympiad (WRO) Asia Pacific Open Championship with homemade robots designed to help farmers, hospital patients, the elderly, and people with disabilities.

The championship was held from 25 to 27 September at GMR Arena in Aerocity, Hyderabad, and hosted by WRO India. It brought together 149 teams from 25 countries and more than 700 participants and supporters. This year’s theme was “Robots Meet Culture”. Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat inaugurated the event.

The Sri Lankan teams earned their places by qualifying at the WRO national competition in Sri Lanka, organised by the WRO national organiser, Burhani Serendib School. They competed in the Future Innovators category, where students design and build an original robot to solve a real problem in their communities.

MechRE secures 8th place with a robotic guide dog

Team MechRE from Gateway College Negombo secured 8th place in the Senior category with Jaga, a robotic guide dog built to help blind and elderly people move around safely.

The idea came from a simple worry. Many older people and people with weak eyesight struggle to get around alone, even inside their own homes. A trained guide dog can cost over 1.5 million rupees and involve years of waiting, and many families are unable to keep a dog indoors.

Ometh, Nethika and Sineth built Jaga as an alternative. The robot leads its user around obstacles and warns them when something is in the way, and a mobile app lets family members keep an eye on it.

Before they built anything, the students visited their own grandparents and their friends to ask what they struggled with. Ten of the 13 elders they spoke to said they had trouble finding their way around the house. The team’s first version broke under regular use, so they went back and rebuilt it with stronger parts.

Team F takes 10th place in the Junior category with a farming robot

Team F, made up of Bothalage Akindu Dilneth Ranuraka Fernando and Mohamed Rishad Aahil, secured 10th place in the Junior category with FUSION, a robot built to help small-scale farmers and home gardeners.

FUSION finds its own way around a garden, recognises plants and waters them only when the soil is dry, helping to save water. The team drew on the Sri Lankan tradition of Nakath, the practice of choosing auspicious times for important farming work. The robot offers Nakath-inspired watering guidance and supports traditional crops and medicinal plants such as Gotukola. A mobile app gives farmers short pieces of advice rooted in local farming knowledge.

R.E.A.C.H. secures 15th place with smart glasses for heritage sites

Team R.E.A.C.H., made up of Colombo students Taher Hussain, Ammaar Mustafa and Taher Iqbal Hussain, secured 15th place in the Senior category with EchoLens.

EchoLens is a small device that clips onto ordinary glasses and is designed to open up museums and heritage sites to visitors who are blind, hard of hearing or unable to speak. It shows live captions of what a tour guide says, reads museum labels aloud, describes what is in front of the wearer, and turns sign language into speech. The team has Sigiriya in mind as its main use case. This was the team’s second appearance at a WRO event, following its debut in Singapore last year.

Syncro-Rise takes 17th place in the Elementary category

The youngest Sri Lankan participants also held their own. Sethika, Kithuja and Randiw, Grade 6 and 7 students who compete as Team Syncro-Rise, secured 17th place in the Elementary category with the Smart Multifunctional Hospital Bed.

With one touch of a sensor, the bed folds from a flat position into a sitting chair, so patients can change position without being lifted. The students built it with a LEGO kit after seeing how hard nurses in Sri Lankan hospitals work to move patients.

Looking ahead

All four teams took a problem they had seen around them, built a working answer to it, and presented it to judges alongside students from across the region. Their work showed that young Sri Lankans are ready to use technology to help the people around them, and the experience gained in Hyderabad will stay with them long after the championship.

The journey doesn’t end in Hyderabad. Next year’s national competition will be held in March, giving more young Sri Lankan innovators the chance to build, compete, and earn a place on the international stage. Students, parents, teachers and schools who want to be part of it can stay informed in two ways.Scan the QR code below to join our WhatsApp group for the latest announcements, registration details, and updates, or visit our website at wro.lk to learn more about the competition, the categories, and how to take part.