2025 Rising Pioneers Online Open Contest Results Announcement

The 2025 Rising Pioneers Online Open Contest has officially come to an end. This year’s competition brought together creative young innovators from around the world who explored real-world challenges through robotics, AI, and problem-solving design. We are proud to present the results of both Phase I – Community Popularity Vote and Phase II – Official Judging.

A warm congratulations to all participating teams for your creativity, effort, and commitment to making innovation meaningful.

PHASE I – Community Popularity Award

🏆 Winner: The Gaals

(Hungary 🇭🇺)

Project: AI Book Sorter

After a month of open community voting, The Gaals from Hungary have received the highest number of votes, earning the 2025 Community Popularity Award.

🔍 Project Summary

The “AI Book Sorter” is a smart assistant designed to help students determine which books they need to bring to school each day.

Using the MATRIX Mini R4 controller, the system identifies:

• Who the student is (via color sensor)

• What day of the week it is (via potentiometer)

• Which subject each book belongs to (via color sensor)

With a pre-programmed timetable, the device decides whether each book is needed and uses a small motorized mechanism to push the book into the “Needed Today” or “Leave at Home” output.

💡 Solution & Impact

The Book Sorter project demonstrates how robotics and simple AI logic can directly improve everyday routines.

Its clarity, practicality, and strong educational relevance made it a favorite among the general public.

The judges also recognized its strong potential for future development—such as implementing AI camera recognition or automated book-feeding functions.

PHASE II – Official Judging Results

Following a detailed evaluation based on the Rising Pioneers scoring criteria, the judges are pleased to announce the top results:

🥇 1st Place – HominoX

(Taiwan🇹🇼)

Project: HominoX - The Missions of the Mars Rovers

Project HominoX integrated exploration, resource extraction, purification, and sustainable power management into a single, cohesive mission framework, earning the Gold Medal in Phase II.

🔍 Project Summary

HominoX presented an ambitious multi-robot system designed to support future human missions on Mars.

From the team’s detailed engineering report, their system includes:

• Aerial Scanning Drone

  • Performs terrain mapping using an M-Vision camera

  • Sends frames via MQTT for real-time visualization

  • Analyzes areas by color-zone segmentation and generates shortest safe paths using BFS

• Ice Collector Robot

  • Follows BFS-generated path with micro-corrections

  • Collects ice and navigates back to base

• Ice Sorting Unit

  • Filters and processes collected ice for construction and radiation shielding

• Sustainable Solar System

  • Monitors dust accumulation

  • Automatically cleans solar panels to maintain power output

• Mission Monitoring Platform

  • Displays maps, robot locations, energy data, purity reports

  • Generates real-time alerts

💡 Solution & Impact

HominoX demonstrated a high level of engineering, combining algorithmic planning, multi-system communication, and real scientific context.Their project shows exceptional long-term potential in STEM learning, robotics, and simulated planetary missions—clearly embodying the spirit of Rising Pioneers.

🥈 2nd Place – The Gaals

In addition to winning the Popularity Award, The Gaals earned SIlver Medal in the official judging.

Their project was recognized for its thoughtful design, clear logic, practical utility, and strong presentation.

The 2025 Rising Pioneers Online Contest showcased diverse and creative solutions—from intelligent daily-life tools to planetary exploration systems.

Each team demonstrated the power of curiosity, engineering thinking, and meaningful innovation.

We congratulate HominoX, The Gaals, and all participating teams for their achievements.Your ideas and efforts continue to inspire the global Rising Pioneers community.

Stay tuned for upcoming MARC events, and keep building the future—one idea at a time.