Students set to represent India at Qatar's robot Olympiad

His voice oozing with confidence, nine-year-old Vinay Sabhnani from Bhopal hopes that his participation at next month's World Robot Olympiad (WRO) in Qatar with a robot that explores and crush toxic material will take him close towards his dreams.

The 20 winning teams of the Indian Robot Olympiad in Gurgaon on September 27 by India Stem Foundation will take part in the 'robot explorers' themed Nov 6-8 world championships.

The WRO 2015 is one of the world's largest robotics competitions for young people. At the event thousands of students will be representing 55 countries at Doha's iconic 6,000 square-meter Al Shaqab Indoor Arena. Students will compete head-to-head during the event.

The competition include students from elementary (below 13 years), junior (13-16 years) and senior (16-20 years) groups competing in three categories - open, regular and WRO GEN II Football.

The Olympiad, interestingly has different challenges including "Treasure hunt" for junior high school teams while "Pearl Diving" is for the elementary schools category.

Sabhnani, who is participating in the open category said: "This time, we are doing bigger than the IRO with different concepts and features."

"This year's theme encourages participants to build robots that can investigate and explore different environments, some of them aggressive to humans," Sudhanshu Sharma, founder of the India Stem Foundation said.

"Such events involve the use of creativity and problem-solving skills to build robots capable of completing a range of challenges," he added.

The WRO has over 50 member countries and over 20,000 teams compete each year. The World championships are held annually in different countries each year.

India will host the WRO next year.