Playto Labs Students Shine Globally at the Robotics for Good Youth Challenge

Third Place Globally in the Junior Category

Playto Labs student Heyansh Aggarwal represented India at the Robotics for Good Youth Challenge Grand Finale 2026 in Geneva, earning a podium finish among national qualifiers from around the world. His achievement is recorded in the official ITU results.

His success followed an outstanding performance at the India National Finals in 2025, where Playto Labs students won six of the eight awards announced.

Behind these results is a journey that began in regular Playto Labs classes. The students developed their skills through our robotics curriculum, then put that learning to work when the competition opportunity came along.

One student, two complete robots

Heyansh earned his place in Geneva by winning Junior Gold at the India National Finals. At the global event, he competed individually, independently designing, building, programming, testing, and demonstrating two complete robots, with guidance from his Playto Labs mentors.

He handled both the hardware and software himself. The challenge gave him an opportunity to bring these skills together and demonstrate what he could create.

Organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations specialized agency for digital technologies, as part of the AI for Good Global Summit, the competition challenges students to design and program robots for missions connected to real-world problems.

Six of eight awards at the India National Finals

At the India 2025 National Finals, held during India Mobile Congress, Playto Labs students earned recognition across the Junior and Senior categories.

Their achievements included:

Together, our students won six of the eight awards announced, including all three Junior medals and the innovation awards in both categories.

Each competed as a single-member team, taking responsibility for their robot’s design, construction, and programming.

They started their robotics journey at Playto Labs from zero

When these students joined Playto Labs, they had no prior robotics experience. They began with our regular robotics curriculum, learning to design, build, program, and test their own projects.

Through ongoing classes and hands-on work, they developed an understanding of how hardware and software work together. They practised turning ideas into working robots, finding the reasons behind problems, and improving their designs.

When the Robotics for Good Youth Challenge opportunity came along, they had a foundation they could draw on. The competition gave them a new setting to apply the skills they had been developing at Playto Labs.

A curriculum that builds independent roboticists

At Playto Labs, our curriculum helps students become increasingly capable of creating their own projects. Building a robot involves many connected decisions: how a mechanism should work, how to control it through code, how to test its behaviour, and what to change when something goes wrong.

Working through these decisions across different projects helps students develop both technical understanding and confidence in solving unfamiliar problems.

Our students brought that experience to the competition. They designed and fabricated their robots, wrote and debugged their code, tested their solutions, and refined their builds. They also considered competition risks and practised explaining their engineering decisions.

Heyansh went on to independently develop and demonstrate two complete robots at the global finals, bringing together the hardware and software skills he had developed through his learning.

Applying their learning beyond the classroom

The students built their competition robots at home with remote guidance from Playto Labs mentors. They carried out the physical construction, programming, and testing themselves; mentors only gained hands-on access to the robots when they met at the competition.

That independence is a meaningful reflection of their learning. Faced with a new challenge, they could draw on their experience, make decisions, and take responsibility for their own creations.

Their achievements show how a strong foundation in robotics can equip children to make the most of opportunities beyond their regular classes.

Celebrating the students and everyone behind them

Congratulations to Heyansh, Yadnya, Naithik, and Aarav for their achievements. Thank you to their parents for encouraging them and to the Playto Labs mentors who supported their learning.

We’re proud of the medals and awards. We’re also proud of the work behind them: students learning to build independently, persevere through problems, and explain their ideas with confidence.

Every day, families and teachers get to see children’s curiosity take shape through their projects. Moments like these give those children an opportunity to share what they can do with the wider world.

Explore more projects and achievements on our Student Achievements page. For more about the event itself, read our Robotics for Good Youth Challenge guide.