Four Mozambican teenagers have developed a robot to collect and transport simulated fire outbreaks, technology that they intend to adapt to combat forest fires by minimizing human risk and now leading to a competition in South Korea.
© Lusa
05/10/2026
by
Lusa
A team is composed by Kelven Melo and Elbeny Melo, both 16 years old, and Waiz Popatiya and Andilli Shanilla Cordeiro, 15 years old, students who form Stemmoze and who will represent Mozambique at the FIRST Global Challenge 2026, international robotics competition that will run from October 7th to 10th, Incheon.
Three of the teenagers attend 10th grade and Waiz is in 9th grade. The team left on Sunday for South Korea to participate in the competition, which brings together students from more than 190 countries and which this year takes place under the theme “Igniting Innovation”, focused on the prevention, mitigation and recovery of forest fires.
In the “Igniting Innovation Robotics Challenge”, teams compete in a simulated forest fire prevention, mitigation and recovery environment, using practical engineering and strategy to explore ways to reduce the risk and impact of fires, protect communities and strengthen environmental resilience.
“The challenge is to build a robot capable of capturing balls that represent fires,” Lusa Andilli Shanilla Cordeiro, a student at the 10th class of Nhamunda College.
The prototype was developed in about four weeks with materials provided by the organization of the competition through the US company REV Robotics, specialized in the development of components and educational robotics systems.
The robot was designed to collect balls that represent fires, store them and transport them to a containment area within the competition field.
The machine was also built to climb an inclined structure, on a course starting at 24 centimeters and reaching two meters high, one of the requirements set for the international race.
The battery of the equipment allows about 30 minutes of operation for each charge.
“ It's not fireworks, actually, but after that challenge I believe we can improve our robot so that it can really help in real life with the fires. We can put together a water pipe so that, instead of the human being having to expose to fire, take risks, one can use the robot being at a distance ", said Andilli.
The project began with Waiz, who began the development of the robot, and later integrated Andilli, Kelven and Elbeny.
For Andilli, interest in robotics arose only this year, after the introduction of discipline in school.
“They introduced robotics into my school and I began to learn. I was like, wow, I've never gotten along with this before. In fact, I have friends who were programming and other things, but I was never interested”, he said.
Young people argue that robotics and STEM areas (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) should gain more space in Mozambican public schools.
“ I believe that we must take this challenge into account, look at this challenge so that we can incorporate it into Mozambican reality. We also have Stemmoze, which is an institution that works with technologies, but we could make robotics and STEM something we have in our public schools,” Andilli said.
The team now seeks sponsorship to continue developing the prototype and supporting future international participations.
Teenagers say they want to take advantage of the competition to gain experience, meet other young people and demonstrate the work done in Mozambique.
Elbeny Melo confesses he's been interested in robotics since he was a kid and says the team is going to South Korea with ambition to win.
“ We are there with the mentality of wanting to win, but also there to gain experience, socialize, many things”, said Elbeny, adding that the group has already presented the project to the Mozambican President, Daniel Chapo, who, according to the youth, expressed the desire to see them win.
FIRST Global Challenge is an international robotics competition held annually in a different country and brings together students from around the world to build and program robots to respond to challenges related to global problems. In 2026, the event will take place in Incheon, one of South Korea's leading innovation centers.