It is day two of the FIRST Global Challenge 2019 in Dubai, and a young team of enthusiastic Italian students are working meticulously on putting the finishing touches on their robot. Among the sea of competitors from 191 countries here, the Italians are confident their robot is the solution to the millions of pollutants that make their way into the world’s oceans, adversely affecting marine life and global populations.

Winners of the Scuola di Robotica national competition, where they beat back more than 100 contenders to the prize, Team Italy brings to the Challenge a robot that focuses on cleaning water by removing hydrocarbons, primary components of petroleum and natural gas. Coming all the way from I.I.S.S. Liceti in the small town of Rapallo, Giorgio Bernardini, Luca De Ponti, Alberto Conte, Giorgia Boitano and Matilde Avanzino are enthusiastic about being in the UAE for the robotics Olympics. They all share an abiding love for the multidisciplinary subject and are confident that it is the future of human welfare. Just like the FIRST Global Challenge, they believe that robotics brings people together for the common good.

“Robotics is for our generation” said Giorgio, 18, who enjoys the flexibility that robotics offers to tackle the more pressing challenges of today. “It is an open field that brings about many opportunities and is something that our parents were not able to pursue.”

Using their imagination and being very productive were the two main strategies that Team Italy employed in building their robot. Part of the competition requires teams to use their prototype robots to collect and deliver pollutants to a processing barge that has three levels – recovery, recycle and reuse.  Preferring not to restrict their project to a specific sketch, and instead allowing the idea to take shape as they went along, the Italians built a robot that collects micro pollutants and shoots them into the “reuse” level while pushing macro pollutants into the “recovery” level.

Innovation and artificial intelligence are two important aspects that are already playing a big part in shaping our future world. In countries such as Italy that beautifully combine the historic marvels of the old world and the inventive spirit of the new, the use of technology can facilitate improvements in multiple industries. As Luca points out, “robotics does not present the answer to our world’s problems, however, it is a big component of the solution.”