And in the coming 5th Philippine Robotics Olympiad, elementary and high school students get a chance to show off their skills in building and manipulating robots.

The event, organized by the Department of Science and Technology and Felta Multimedia, hopes to encourage children to pursue learning in the fields of science, physics, engineering and mathematics though robotics.

The Philippine finals will be held on October this year and the winning team will be sent to Nanling, China for the World Robotics Olympiad on November, organizers have said.

So far, there are almost 80 teams from 60 schools being groomed for the local competition, compared to just 50 the previous year.

“We’ve been doing a lot of promotional activities in schools these past months so that students will be more exposed to robotics. We’ve noticed that students are keen to learn about traditional subjects, if they apply these in fun ways, in this case, the use of robots,” according to Felta Multimedia president Mylene Abiva Sazon.

In this year’s local competition, teams will be using a build setup called Lego Nxt Robot from toymaker Lego. Participating schools have to purchase the 35,000-peso Lego Nxt Robot.

“But these are not toys that you buy off the shelf. These are built to help students understand math and physics. It’s even being used now by the DOST to train their physics teachers,” Sazon said.

Participating teams, composed of three students and a teacher-coach, will choose four categories, two for elementary and another two for high school.

The elementary category includes football (soccer) and usage of renewable energy.

Likewise, the high school categories are slalom and creation of a humanoid robot.

Sazon said that the Philippine teams have consistently won in previous World Robotics Olympiad. In 2002, the La Salle Zobel school won a silver medal; in 2003, La Salle Greenhills won a bronze medal; Marikina Science High School won fourth place and a citation in the World Robotics Olympiads in 2004 and 2005.

“This shows that Filipino children are getting adept at robots, not just as toys but for learning. This is also a team-based game so it develops camaraderie among children. Hopefully we go home with another, better prize this year from the World Robotics Olympiad,” Sazon said.