russia robotics team
© Innopolis University
Russian teams showed off the best of their engineering talent, scoring huge wins at this year's World Robot Olympiad where they competed with teams from 71 countries.

Over 1,100 young talents flocked to Gyor, Hungary for the 2019 World Robot Olympiad (WRO). The organizers encouraged students to generate innovative ideas that "will help save energy, make traffic safer, and improve public transport systems" in the 'smart cities' of the future.

Each team was required to design, construct, and program their robots to solve specific challenges. Points were scored for each completed task, and that's where the Russian teams left most of their rivals in the dust.

Russia's Roadster and Nimbus2019 won gold and silver in the elementary category, in which students were tasked with building a concept for a real autonomous, self-driving taxi.

Another Russian team, SP-1, claimed gold in the senior category, designing a robot that teaches robotics to human students.

In total, the Russians won two gold and two silver medals, and one bronze medal.

In all, 42 teams represented Russia at WRO 2019, according to Innopolis University, a Tatarstan-based institution that has been preparing children for the prestigious contest since 2014.

"This year, participants solved new challenges that had nothing to do with their homework," Aleksey Khabibullin, Innopolis' director for pre-university education, said. "These wins are a real treasure because our guys solved them on their own under stress and in front of everyone."