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A team made up of Maltese students, calling themselves ‘Rocky CO.2’, have won the international robotics competition called .

The winning team consists of three female students from three educational institutions, namely Ms Sofiya Chuzhda from G.F. Abela Junior College, Ms Antonia Ciappara from St Nicholas College, Dingli Secondary School, and Ms Elizabeth Kovrigina from IES El Getares, Algeciras, Cádiz, Spain.

The members of each team were asked to select an environmental issue and propose a solution to it using a robotic prototype. Rocky CO.2 chose to focus on the greenhouse effect, and came up with a robot prototype that increases the rate at which carbon dioxide is removed from the air through a process called enhanced weathering.

Following their win, EIT RawMaterials, the coordinators of the competition, will actually be producing this robot.

The ‘Girls Go Circular’ robotics competition is part of the Girls Go Circular project, aiming to equip 40,000 schoolgirls across Europe with digital and entrepreneurial skills through an online learning programme.

This is another effort by the European Commission to increase female representation in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) careers.

The online learning platform developed in the framework of the project – the “” – offers students the option of choosing between different learning modules on topics like e-waste, climate change, food, or robotics. These modules are based on a learning-by-doing approach, transferring knowledge and skills through an interactive, challenge-based structure.

The Newspoint team reached out to Ms Chuzhda, who commented: "I got to know about this competition, through the way all teens get to know about things nowadays: Instagram ads. This one instantly enticed me since it was an opportunity to not only expand my knowledge about the circular economy and the environment (topics I have always been passionate about) but also, of course, an opportunity to participate in an international competition in Brussels.

Of course, representing Malta at this prestigious event, with the best team out there, was an absolute honor. The moment we won…to be honest I couldn’t believe it at first, but as we went up on stage, it all settled in and I was absolutely radiating with joy, I could not stop smiling from ear to ear! It was an amazing moment, the memory of which I will cherish for years to come."