The First Global Challenge, the World Robotics Olympiad, was held in Panama City and brought together schoolchildren from more than 190 countries.
Turkmen school students took first place in the “Skills Challenge” category, with Armenia taking second and China third.
At one stage, the robots had to collect and throw as many balls into the basket as possible, as well as climb as high as possible on a rope. It was the flawless execution of this task that brought the victory to the national team of Turkmenistan.
Collecting a large number of balls symbolizes the accumulation and sorting of resources, throwing them simulates the delivery of environmental materials to hard-to-reach recycling areas, and rapid rope climbing reflects the ability of technology to overcome natural obstacles while eliminating the consequences of environmental challenges.
This task embodies the main idea of the Olympiad, which this year was held under the motto “balance between technology and nature.”
Murat Sakhetgulyev, the mentor of the Turkmen robotics team, has been heading the national team of Turkmenistan since 2022. Under his leadership, the team participated in international robotics competitions: in Switzerland in 2022, in Singapore in 2023, and in Greece in 2024.
The national team achieved its greatest success in 2025, when it won the first place. The team consisted of five students of the specialized secondary school No. 97 in Ashgabat aged 15 to 17 years: Ismail Charyev, Emirkhan Gilychmukhammedov, Aznavur Cholukov, Shirmukhammet Gulov and Gurbangeldi Orazgeldyev. The guys passed the qualifying stage, as a result of which 5 of the strongest were selected from 15 participants sent to the three-month courses.
The team have conducted hours-long daily training for the past six months. Before the tournament, the team has been actively improving and refining its robot for the last 3 months in accordance with the technical regulations of the Olympiad.
Murat Sakhetgulyev – (mentor of the Turkmen robotics team “Oguzrobot”): Such contests play a big role for young people. The strongest motivation for them is the opportunity to enroll in prestigious universities of the world in related fields. They also learn to work in a team, understand each other perfectly, cope with stress, always look for new solutions and turn on imagination.
The advantage of our robot is its precise throwing, it can throw the ball into a basket 2 meters high. The most difficult challenge was to cope with climbing the rope in the last 30 seconds of the game, we also coped brilliantly with this and earned extra points!
Ismail Charyev – (mechanical engineer of the Oguzrobot team): Our path to victory was emotionally intense. There were quite a few emergency situations that had to be dealt on the go. After we left the first game, I realized that our robot had started to short out. I visually inspected it, everything was in order. But the motors were buggy, they needed to be replaced. 45 minutes until the next game! I understood that I need to figure it out, I checked everything in detail and discovered that the smallest detail inside the motor was broken. We run to the robot hospital and explained for a long time why we need such a part, because they don’t just give out such parts there.
We still got it 15 minutes before the game. And now I don’t even understand how I replaced 2 engines in just 10 minutes and was on the field of play 5 minutes before the start, as expected. But all these emotions were worth it – we became the first in our nomination! Over the course of 12 games, I’ve clearly realized one thing: no matter how strong your robot is, if you don’t know how to interact with people properly, there’s no question of winning. We had the most interesting game with a team from the fraternal country of Kazakhstan, the guys are very strong, we were able to establish the necessary interaction with them.
Emirkhan Gylychmukhammedov – (captain of the Oguzrobot team): I remember the emotions from the opening ceremony, when we came out with our green flag as representatives of Turkmenistan, it was exciting. During the competition, we had a lot of emergency situations that we were already beginning to doubt our victory. But we got together on time and became the first in the Skills Challenge nomination, although the competitors were very strong! ///nCa, November 7, 2025 (in cooperation with the Embassy of Turkmenistan in Russia)