Nine-year-old boy from the State capital has brought laurels to Madhya Pradesh for having selected to participate in the World Robot Olympiad (WRO), scheduled in Qatar next month.

The confident Vinay Sabnani has designed a robot that explores and crushes toxic material. He got selected for the WRO, after having cleared the Indian Robot Olympiad in Gurgaon on September 27. The competition was organised by the India Stem Foundation. The 20 teams that have emerged victorious are participating in the WRO scheduled from November 6 to 8.

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 includes 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 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.

The Olympiad, interestingly has different challenges including ‘Treasure hunt’ for junior high school teams while ‘Pearl Diving’ is for the elementary schools category. Sabnani, who is participating in the open category said, “This time, we are doing bigger than the IRO with different concepts and features.”

Founder of the India Stem Foundation Sudhanshu Sharma feels that this year’s theme has encouraged participants to build robots that can investigate and explore different environments; some of them are aggressive to humans.

He stated that such events involve the use of creativity and problem-solving skills to build robots capable of completing a range of challenges.