Pierluigi Bargellini's lesson continues at RomeCup 2025
Pier Luigi Bargellini is a retired teacher in name only. After being “sent home” due to age limits four years ago, he has continued to work every day with the school. Because education, for those who see it as a vocation, knows no deadlines.
Over the years, Bargellini has transformed laboratory hours into creative spaces for scientific citizenship. With his students at the Enrico Fermi high school in Bibbiena (Arezzo), led by headmaster Maurizio Librizzi, he has created technological projects with a strong social impact: devices to help the elderly take their medication, road safety systems to combat distracted or drunk driving, and the famous “child safety seat”. With the introduction of the law requiring the use of anti-abandonment devices in car seats, “now children no longer die”, he recalls with the clear-headedness of someone who has made school a driving force for change.
This year at RomeCup 2025 the group led by Bargellini won third place in the Health Bot contest, part of the Fattore J project, with Ranger Robot, an explorer robot designed to operate in hostile or contaminated environments. Equipped with drive wheels, a camera, headlights, UV-C lamps and a disinfectant tank, it can intervene in first aid operations, either autonomously or remotely. Navigation can be via radio control or an ultrasound system, making it ideal for emergency or biological risk contexts [see the news item HealthBot 2025, young innovators for health].
Behind every success, there is a consistent and tireless educational vision. ‘We work in the morning and afternoon, and we intend to continue on this path,’ he explains. Because, as his career demonstrates, technology is not an end in itself, but a tool for solidarity and responsibility, especially when it is students who imagine its most humane uses.
Pier Luigi Bargellini is proof that teaching is not just a job. It is a way of life that continues to flourish even beyond retirement, as long as there is a young person to accompany into the future.
The Range Robot team
Coordinating teachers
- Pier Luigi Bargellini (Electronics Laboratory, retired)
- Alessio Ferrini (Installation and maintenance technologies and techniques)
- Fabrizio Fiorentini (Electrical and Electronic Science and Technology Laboratories)
- Vasco Claudio Castelli (technical assistant)
- Gianmarco Vinciarelli (external technician)
The students of class 5ª C, Electronics course
- Alessandro Checcacci
- Fabio Ciabatti
- Gabriele Mazzoni
- Pietro Senesi
- Lapo Picchi
- Niccolò Vicini
- Vadi Alessandro
The students of class 5ª D, Electronics course
- Christian Mazzucco
- Tommaso Baracchi
- Lorenzo Vignoli
- Tommaso Nerei
- Christian Minucci
- Filippo Fortin
‘For us students, the project was the realisation and practical application of many of the topics studied in class, and we are happy to have created a prototype robot that has been extremely educational for us and who knows, maybe useful to the world.’
A special thought goes out to all the students taking their final exams, especially the guys on the Robot Ranger team, who are facing the most important test of their school career. To them, and to all the young people taking their state exams, we wish you the best of luck: take with you the passion, determination and sense of responsibility you have shown over the years. The future awaits you, and you are ready to live it as protagonists.
