The World Robot Olympiad opened in Singapore on Wednesday with hundreds of international students, some as young as eight, set to compete using automatons to solve real-world problems.

The annual competition, which began in 2004 in Singapore and was held in Turkey last year, highlights the importance of technology and science in improving daily lives, using the inventive spirit of young students.

Organisers said 594 teams, comprising 1,571 participants from 91 countries, have registered for competitions to be held on Thursday and Friday on the theme “The Future of Robots”.

The theme “explores the way robotics can help solve global challenges and improve our lives”, according to a fact sheet issued by the organisers.

Contestants aged between eight and 22 have all advanced from local and national qualifiers to compete on the global stage.

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They will be grouped according to age to compete in the various categories.

One challenge them to “build and programme a robot that solves challenges on a field” that changes randomly for each round to allow the machines to make independent decisions.

Robots will duel each other in “double tennis” in the “RoboSports” category, while participants in another category will “develop a robot project that helps solve real-world problems”.

A new category for 14 to 22-year-olds involves autonomous driving, with teams instructed to “build a steering-drive robot to navigate a track independently”, organisers said.

“This year’s theme… invites participants to design intelligent machines for a smarter future. Robotics is a growth area for Singapore,” Grace Fu, Singapore’s minister for sustainability and the environment, said.

“We’re developing autonomous vehicles, drones for the safe washing of high-rise facades, and robots that support health care services,” she said.