In Iwate Prefecture, there are various initiatives being developed to train the next generation of scientists and engineers. One such initiative is the Iwate High School Science and Engineering Challenge Contest, held every year by the Bureau of International Linear Collider (ILC) Promotion. This contest sees high school students within the prefecture coming up with their own research themes related to physics, chemistry, or engineering, then competing based on scientific reasoning and presentation skills. It was held for the 6^th time in December 2025 in Morioka, and a total of 37 students from 5 different high schools, broken up into 9 teams, participated and presented their research findings. The judges were college professors, researchers, and faculty members—experts in their respective fields.

One unique aspect of this contest is that students were able to receive guidance from an expert in advance in order to prepare. Researchers offered the students advice starting one or two months before the contest, helping with the research process, data sorting, presentation organization, and more.

This wasn’t just superficial research for show—the instruction emphasized the importance of critical thinking and the fundamentals of research, and it was apparent that the students’ inquisitive minds were developing further. Through this kind of advance guidance, the students continued to polish up their research until they reached the day of the contest.

On that day, it had been snowing heavily since morning. Many students were unable to make it to the opening ceremony due to train delays, but fortunately all participants safely arrived before presentations began.

Students were allotted 15 minutes for their presentations. Here, their ability to explain the background of their research, their methods, and the results they produced in a limited amount of time was put to the test.

After each 15-minute presentation, there was a question-and-answer session with the judges. The students faced the experts’ difficult questions without being thrown off and answered with confidence in their analysis. It felt like the moment they took their first step as researchers.

Amongst the diverse research presented at the contest, Morioka First High School’s team Jigzonia received particularly high praise from the judges and ended up being selected to win first place (Iwate Governor’s Award). Their research theme was Development of a Self-Solving Jigsaw Puzzle Robot. The team was recognized for their high degree of scientific understanding, advanced presentation skills, and accurate responses to the judges’ questions. Next, we would like to cover Jigzonia’s research focus and process.

Jigsaw puzzles are a well-known form of entertainment all over the world, in which players must recognize and correctly choose from a set of pieces that differ in shape and pattern to assemble a final picture. Even for humans, this task can prove difficult at times. So how did this team manage to give a robot such advanced judgement that it can solve these puzzles?

To assemble the puzzle, the following three processes are repeated.

1. A puzzle piece is analyzed with a camera.
2. The piece is moved to a specified spot, then placed.
3. A new puzzle piece is prepared.

One other unique part of this project is that many of the robot’s parts were made by the students themselves using their school’s 3D printer. Also, pneumatic pressure was used for the mechanism that lifts the puzzle pieces. Despite being a small device, it is able to stably lift comparatively large pieces.

While being advised by an expert before the contest, the team attempted to use an AI camera to scan the puzzle pieces based on their RGB (Red-Green-Blue) values. However, the red and green values came out the same, making it impossible for the robot to accurately distinguish between the two colors. Therefore, the students thought that the AI camera was perhaps automatically performing color correction to make its images more visible to the human eye.

In order to solve this problem, they turned to an image processing technique called Hu moments. Hu moments are an index utilized to express the characteristics of an object’s shape, and even if the image’s location, angle, or size changes, the values remain constant. By focusing on shape and not color, this method succeeded in reliably identifying puzzle pieces.

But the team didn’t stop at solving puzzles—they went further and considered future applications for their research as well. They wish to apply the algorithm and robot parts they developed to product sorting operations and technology that assists visually impaired persons. Additionally, potential applications in the transportation and installation of components at the ILC construction site were also touched upon, highlighting the many future prospects that this research holds.

Other teams’ research included topics such as a storm glass that predicts temperature, a fire extinguisher that uses sound to put out fires, and techniques to convert a mantis shrimp’s ultrafast punch into electrical energy. With such a diverse range of research displayed, the contest became a high-level conference where participants learned from and inspired each other.

The students of team Jigzonia from Morioka First High School who took first place are scheduled to participate in a study tour in March, where they will visit leading national research facilities (such as J-PARC and Super-Kamiokande). This experience of actual research settings will greatly inspire the students and give them a chance to further deepen their interest in future career paths and research.

We at the Bureau of ILC Promotion hope that through these initiatives, the young generation—our future leaders—will discover the appeal of science and engineering, and continue to tackle research challenges that engage with the world.