Italian students win WRO award for tactile art tablet

Four former students from Genoa won one of four top prizes in the World Robot Olympiad’s new STEM Entrepreneur Program after building a tactile tablet for blind and visually impaired users. The project, tested with local volunteers before its debut in India, earned $5,000 and six months of mentoring.

Why it matters: - The project links robotics with accessibility, showing how student-built technology can help blind and visually impaired people create and experience art. - The win puts an Italian team among four global winners in a new WRO format designed to push student ideas toward real-world use. - Each winning team gets $5,000 and six months of mentoring from industry experts, which could help move the prototype beyond the competition stage.

What happened: - Four former students from Istituto Calasanzio in Genoa were selected as one of the four winners of the World Robot Olympiad STEM Entrepreneur Program. - The team competed as Mini-Ibot Innovators: Benedetta Argentoni, 16; Elia Pedemonte, 17; Nicolò Ghio, 17; and Claudio Cassavia, 15. - The students presented Omero: The B-Art at the WRO STEM Entrepreneur Program in Hyderabad, India, on 28 September 2026. - The event brought together 22 student teams from 13 countries. - The Italian team won alongside teams from the Philippines, India and South Korea.

The details: - The team built a tactile tablet that uses 25 individually controlled points that rise to form a tactile image in response to touch. - The prototype can also associate sounds with colors to add another sensory layer. - The project began after the students visited Palazzo Reale in Genoa and saw a tactile reproduction of a painting. - The students said they learned how difficult and expensive it is to produce tactile versions of individual artworks. - The team first wanted to make museum artworks accessible through touch, then expanded the idea to let users create their own art through touch and sound. - The students tested Omero with four blind and visually impaired volunteers at the David Chiossone Foundation in Genoa. - The volunteers gave direct feedback on usability. - The team pitched both the technical and practical value of its project to entrepreneurs, investors and industry professionals in Hyderabad. - WRO said the competition asked students to explain how their technology works, why it matters and how it could reach the market. - The program is powered by Aramco and is intended to bridge STEM education and entrepreneurship. - The inaugural event included teams from Ghana, India, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Myanmar, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Africa and Uganda.

Between the lines: - The project reflects a broader shift from assistive museum access toward user-driven creative tools. - Testing the prototype with blind and visually impaired people before the competition likely strengthened both the design and the pitch. - The award structure suggests WRO is trying to reward not just engineering skill, but market readiness and social impact. - Silvia Cerioni, founder of the DreamPuzzle Association and Italy’s national WRO organizer, said the program connects competition skills with entrepreneurship and gives young innovators a chance to refine projects with industry experts. - Aramco Corporate Citizenship Manager Hadeel Al-Eisa said the company wants students to take ideas from ideation and prototyping to execution and real-world innovation.

What's next: - WRO plans to bring the STEM Entrepreneur Program format to national organizers around the world after the Hyderabad launch. - The Italian team will use the six-month mentoring period to further develop Omero and explore how it could reach users. - The mentors include investment professionals from Aramco Ventures, along with experts from India STEM Foundation and WRO.

The bottom line: - A Genoa student team turned an accessibility problem into an award-winning art-tech prototype, and WRO is betting that entrepreneurship-focused mentoring can help such ideas move beyond the contest floor.