Written by: Jess Curran
Budz, 2025.
Each year, the European Union Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS) pools together over a hundred of the brightest students across the globe, this year, spanning 37 different countries during this year’s competition to showcase their novel projects [1]. EUCYS 2025 just closed on its 36th annual competition, taking place in Riga, Latvia where first place was awarded to – a robot turtle[2]!
Evan Budz, a 15-year-old Canadian scientist was concerned with the sustainability of ocean monitoring systems and sought to identify a less intrusive solution. He took inspiration from the graceful movements he observed from snapping turtles, and modeled his bionic monitoring system to limit disturbance to other organisms in the aquatic ecosystems [3]. The agile movement of his turtle robot was achievable due its multi-axis propulsion system adapted for fluid dynamics [4]. Budz was able to experiment with this design in his grandparent’s pool until it was perfect.
Not only is this a remarkable feat of mechanical engineering, its monitoring system is likewise as impressive. Budz trained the robot turtle on an AI-imaging model that enables the robot to identify coral bleaching with 96% accuracy [4]. Coral is a keystone species in ocean environments, and the mechanical and machine learning components work together to create an eco-friendly means to closely observe the species health, and subsequently the entire ecosystem.
Evan Budz’s science fair project proves to be promising for the future of the young generations’ creativity and ingenuity as well as a genuine passion for promoting sustainable efforts, even if it requires out of the box thinking, such as robot turtles!
Sources:
[1] https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/funding/funding-opportunities/eucys_en
[3] CBC
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/evan-budz-bionic-turtle-underwater-ecosystems-1.7645966
[4]
2 EU source