On 15th March, the Robotics for Good Youth Challenge China was held at Fudan University, Shanghai. Students aged 10 to 18 from different parts of China showcased their skills in the leading UN-based global robotics competition, focusing on the critical area of food security. The winners will receive the ticket to the Robotics for Good Youth Challenge Grand Finale in Geneva during the AI for Good Global Summit in July 2026.
As the popularity of AI technology continues to grow, STEM education for the younger generation is moving beyond interest enlightenment and skill training toward a more comprehensive cultivation, such as practical engineering, problem solving and teamwork skills. Unlike traditional robotics competitions, this championship does not focus on speed or winning. Instead, it challenges participants to design functional robotic solutions tailored to real-world agricultural tasks, including harvesting and irrigation, around the theme of food security.
Jiang Yugang, Member of the Standing Committee of the 16th Fudan University Committee of the Communist Party of China, Vice President of Fudan University, and Dean of the College of Intelligent Robotics and Advanced Manufacturing, Fudan University, stated that the competition's theme, “Safeguarding food security with AI,” serves as an exploration of the pro-social values in technological development. It is a response to the global goal of hunger reduction, and more importantly, an echo of China's in-depth implementation of the AI Plus initiative.
On the competition game board, participants are required to complete tasks including sowing, irrigation, harvesting and sorting within two minutes. The robot first identifies plot colors to accurately “sow seeds” in a grid, then drops blue balls into the sown area to simulate irrigation. At the same time, it must identify, harvest, and sort red, black, and green “fruits” from an elevated platform. On the sidelines, teammates keep their eyes on the robot's movement trajectory, while repeatedly debugging programs and correcting routes; some are in charge of command, some of operation, and some of record-keeping.
Pan Xiaobin, the Chief Referee of the competition, observed that the maker philosophy runs through the entire competition process.
The “Shining Youth” is one of the participating teams composed of three members aged 10 to 13 from Beijing, Baoding and Nanjing. Wang Yihao, a team member, said that the team had revised their proposal six times in a row after receiving the competition brief. The seventh version of their work was what they brought to the competition. The competition gave them a concrete understanding of the concepts of resource conservation and food security assurance.
