Quantum Team, from IFCE in Caucaia, Programmed Machine to Navigate Independently, Overcome Obstacles, and Locate Simulated Victims in a State Competition Involving Over 300 Students and 97 Teams
Students from a public school in Ceará built and programmed a robot capable of independently navigating a disaster-simulated environment, overcoming obstacles, and searching for “victims” without human control during the mission.
The project led the Quantum team from the Caucaia campus of the Federal Institute of Ceará (IFCE) to achieve the highest score among all public schools participating in the state stage of the Brazilian Robotics Olympics (OBR) 2026.
The competition took place on August 29 in Fortaleza, gathering over 300 students across 97 teams representing 34 institutions from ten municipalities in Ceará. The Quantum team competed in Level 2 of the Rescue category and received an additional award for their performance among public institutions.
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The challenge is noteworthy because students do not operate the robot via remote control.
The machine must be equipped to make autonomous decisions when faced with an unfamiliar terrain, interpreting information captured by sensors while attempting to fulfill a task inspired by search and rescue operations.
Robot Must Find “Victims” Without Student Guidance
In the Rescue category, it’s not enough to just build a moving machine.
Students need to develop and program an autonomous robot capable of navigating a simulated hostile environment.
According to the IFCE, the machine must navigate challenging terrains, overcome obstacles, and locate objects representing victims, utilizing resources related to sensing, decision-making, and autonomous locomotion.
This completely transforms the nature of the exercise.
Instead of the competitor seeing an obstacle and just pressing a button to maneuver around it, that decision must be pre-programmed within the robot’s system. The equipment collects information from the environment, interprets what it encounters, and executes behavior defined by the programming done by the students.
This is an educational version of a challenge also faced in professional robotics: making a machine operate in places where human presence may be difficult, time-consuming, or dangerous.
The competition turns this concept into an accessible challenge for elementary, middle, and technical school students.
Over 300 Students Competed with 97 Teams in Ceará
The 2026 state edition brought together 97 actively participating teams from 34 institutions.
According to IFCE, there were initially 159 registered teams in the state. Not all were able to compete on the day of the event due to technical issues with the robots or transportation and accommodation challenges for students traveling to Fortaleza.
The event was held at the Farias Brito Jovem Central School in the state capital. The official OBR schedule included registration starting at 7:30 AM and three rounds of competition throughout the day, prior to the awards ceremony.
The Rescue category is divided into levels based on the participants’ educational background.
The Level 0 category includes students from the early years of elementary school. Level 1 accommodates students from a broader range of elementary levels, while Level 2, in which Quantum competed, includes students from the later years of elementary school, high school, or technical education.
In addition to the Rescue category, the event in Ceará also featured an artistic category where teams use robots for stage presentations.
Quantum finished as the highest-scoring public school
Among all the public institutions in the competition, the best performance was recorded by the Quantum team from IFCE Caucaia.
This recognition occurred specifically in Level 2 of the Rescue category, one of the more technically advanced tiers of the state competition.
The result carries additional weight when considering the aims of the OBR.
The competition evaluates more than just a robot’s ability to move. The project requires students to integrate mechanical construction, programming, sensors, and strategy to solve a practical problem.
A small failure can compromise the entire journey.
A poorly calibrated sensor can lead the robot to misinterpret its environment. An incorrect programming decision may prevent the machine from overcoming a specific obstacle. And a physical issue occurring just days before the competition can even prevent a team from participating.
It is precisely this combination of engineering, trial, error, and correction that aligns the competition with how real-world technologies are developed.
Brazilian competition gathers over 5,000 students
The event in Ceará is just one part of a much larger competition.
According to IFCE, more than five thousand students participate in the practical modality of the Brazilian Robotics Olympics throughout the country.
The OBR is a public and free scientific competition aimed at students from elementary to high school, with goals that include stimulating interest in scientific and technological careers.
Activities are organized with the participation of volunteer teachers from universities and educational institutions across different regions of Brazil.
In Ceará, IFCE has been involved in the state organization for 11 years. In 2026, about 50 volunteers were engaged in the event, including teachers from campuses such as Fortaleza, Boa Viagem, Pecém, and Caucaia.
This history creates an impact that extends beyond a single edition.
According to state representative Rejane Sá, there are competitors who began as children in the first level of the olympiad and have gradually advanced to more complex challenges as they progressed through school.
Robotics also teaches students to work in teams
An autonomous robot does not emerge solely from the programming of one person.
Competitors need to share problems, test solutions, correct failures, and make decisions collectively.
This dimension is reflected in the account of the OBR Ceará organization. Rejane Sá emphasizes that the development promoted by robotics is not only scientific and academic but also social.
To make a machine work, students must interact, discuss strategies, and work together.
This is an important detail.
The visible product of the competition is the robot navigating a course. The less visible learning occurs in the hours prior: testing sensors, figuring out why the machine took a wrong turn, modifying the code, and trying again.
In this respect, a robotics competition functions almost like a small engineering laboratory.
The failure of one attempt does not end the project. It produces information for the next attempt.
National stage will take place in João Pessoa
The next major stage of the competition will be the national stage of the Brazilian Robotics Olympics in João Pessoa, Paraíba.
The announcement from IFCE states that two teams from the Ceará stage — one from Level 1 and the other from Level 2 in the Rescue category — have been selected for the national competition.
However, there is one piece of information that needs to be confirmed before the final publication of this article: the official text consulted does not name these two teams and, therefore, does not allow for confirmation solely from this source that Quantum is the qualified representative from Level 2.
What is already officially documented is significant in itself: students from public school have developed an autonomous robot to tackle a search and rescue simulation and finished the state stage with the highest score among public schools in Ceará.
