Duckie Day 2026 brings robotics to salmon farming
DUOC UC Puerto Montt, Chile, July 2026: Duckie Day 2026 brought together students from six Duoc UC campuses at Puerto Montt for a robotics competition focused on one of Chile’s main industries: salmon farming.
Learning autonomous robotics through industry challenges
Hosted by the School of Computer Science and Telecommunications at Duoc UC Puerto Montt, Duckie Day 2026 brought together students from six Duoc UC campuses at Puerto Montt to tackle robotics challenges inspired by practical issues present in the aquaculture industry of Chile.
Aquaculture is a major economic activity in Chile. Among the diverse aquacultures practiced in the country, Atlantic salmon aquaculture is by far the largest sector. Chile is the second largest salmon and trout producer in the world after Norway.
Duckietown, the platform behind the technical learning
Working with the Duckietown platform, teams developed autonomous Duckiebots capable of navigating independently, detecting sea lice using embedded computer vision, issuing an alert, and autonomously returning to their starting point.
Along the way, participants applied core robotics concepts including camera calibration, lane following, AprilTag localization, PID control, and sim-to-real development on ROS-based robots powered Duckietown.
The main challenge centered on pathogen detection, a critical concern for the regional industry.
Luis Tamariz, a participating student, explained the details of the mission: “It was a competition where we had to program robots with cameras that drive autonomously. The main challenge was to go from point A to different points to complete the goal: detect sea lice, issue an alert, and return to the starting point.”
It was a competition where we had to program robots with cameras that drive autonomously. The main challenge was to go from point A to different points to complete the goal: detect sea lice, issue an alert, and return to the starting point.
Carolina Martínez, Program Director of the School of Computer Science and Telecommunications, highlighted the scale of the gathering:
“We have six campuses participating, a wonderful experience for our students, for our faculty, and for the companies involved. We are proud that our students can use their knowledge of artificial intelligence to demonstrate their connection to the region; these are not just abstract ideas, but a real exercise rooted in the aquaculture industry.
The event was backed by key industry players such as MOWI Chile, who presented real challenges from their processing plants.
Nicolás Mihovilovic, MOWI’s Deputy Manager of Public Affairs, praised the level achieved: “We are very proud of this young talent. These students were able to solve real industry challenges, particularly from Mowi’s processing plant. It took weeks of hard work, planning, and programming.”
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