ITER robots: introducing school students to robotics and project management

Originally developed by ITER, CEA, Agence ITER France and the French Ministry of Education, the ITER Robots Contest is an engineering robotics based competition open to high school and primary students across the South of France. The challenge is to build a reduced scale robot to simulate a maintenance situation inside the future ITER Tokamak machine, namely the remote handling of components in a hostile environment. The ITER Robots Contest has grown in popularity, with more than 600 participants in the 2019 edition. As part of their technical and science curriculum, students work in teams, for over six months, to acquire technical skills and knowledge on robotics and fusion energy, solve problems, develop communication skills, and run their projects. This contest corresponds to the high-school educational 'cross disciplinary approach', from technology to French, foreign languages, as well as history from science to general international knowledge. The contest day, each team`s robot undertakes a number of tasks evaluated by jury composed of ITER and CEA engineers. Teams are also evaluated on communication skills and fusion energy knowledge.