- UF’s Edwin Marte mentored Dominican students via Zoom to help them bring their fire-detecting robot into the World Robotics Olympiad.
- The retooled, water-squirting robot earned 18th place in the international competition in Singapore.
- Inspired by this success, more students launched two new teams and are targeting the World Robotics Olympiad 2026 in Puerto Rico.
In 2025, Alberto Danté Gil reached out to his old friend Edwin Marte, Ph.D., a high school pal from the Dominican Republic who is now an engineering education professor at the University of Florida.
Could Marte, via Zoom sessions from Gainesville, help three Dominican high school students refine their robot for an international competition in six months? Not just any robot but a rolling, fire-seeking robot that can also tattle on smokers lighting up in non-smoking areas.
The teens competed in a national competition earlier that year, but they wanted to rework the hardware design and fine-tune the software for the international competition. Marte was thrilled to help, even 1,000 miles away.
Under Marte’s virtual guidance, the retooled, water-squirting FIREVOLX placed 18th in the World Robotics Olympiad in Singapore. It was a big deal, not just for the teens but also for the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering.