Zero Robotics is the international contest where students from around the world compete to code programmes able to control – autonomously – robots aboard the International Space Station. As highlighted during an interview with the Italian daily Corriere della Sera by Professor Enzo Marvaso, coordinator of the students awarding the competition, “us Italians felt at the centre of global attention”.

Italian students have been the unchallenged protagonists of Zero Robotics: Italian schools represented 35% out of the 250 student teams coming from the US, Austria, Russia, Germany, Mexico, France, the UK, Belgium, Poland, South Korea, Greece, Czech Republic, Canada, and Hungary. When Alexander Misurkin and Joe Acaba, the two astronauts aboard the Space Station, tried the codes given by the Italian students there was a moment of great suspense.