ΤryEngineering OnCampus: The First Robotics & Artificial Intelligence Event for School Students by HERON
On Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 December 2025, 25 students from schools across Greece participated in the first hands-on Robotics and Artificial Intelligence event organized by the HERON – Hellenic Robotics Center of Excellence, in collaboration with Athena Research Center and NTUA. The two-days event was held at the premises of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), School of Electrical & Computer Engineering, with the support of IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), the world’s largest international professional organization dedicated to advancing technology and engineering.
During the two days, the students attended seminars and hands-on exercises on AI and robotics, guided by Prof. Sergios Theodoridis, Prof. Panagiotis Vartholomaios, Dr. Niki Efthymiou, PhD candidates Lydia Gialama and Andreas Vatistas, as well as the junior researchers Gavriil Ioannidis and Argyris Manetas.
A key role for the success of the event is due to the volunteers of the IEEE NTUA Robotics and Automation Society (RAS), who supported the school students throughout the entire duration of the program, helping them to adapt to the laboratory environment and the hands-on nature of the activities.
Working in teams, the students designed, developed, and implemented an AI-powered robotic system for classifying and separating two different types of objects: cereals versus popcorn. Also, they had the opportunity to visit the robotics research laboratory at the NTUA School of ECE and have a closer look at the robotic systems developed by NTUA researchers.
The chair of IEEE Education Activities Board (EAB) Pre-University Education Coordinating Committee, Stamatis Dragoumanos, presented IEEE’s mission to engage school-aged children in Engineering and the value of developing the “Engineering Habits of Mind” and skills like resilience to failure and critical thinking.
The event was honoured by the presence of HERON Director, Prof. Petros Maragos, who presented the vision of HERON: to create an ecosystem embracing education, cutting-edge research, and industry as well as opening up to society and to play a key role in inspiring and actively shaping the technological future in Greece and Europe.
The program concluded with the talk “AI and Society” by Prof. Sergios Theodoridis that was attended by the students as well as their parents, fostering a vivid discussion on the societal, ethical, and human values in the AI era.
This was the first of a series of such events, which have been planned, and our goal is to keep offering more and more opportunities to school-aged children to experience the joy of hands-on exercises in robotics and artificial intelligence in the future.
