CHUNG SZE HON · Jockey Club Man Kwan EduYoung College · Hong Kong, China · Cutting Edge Technologies · Makers and Teams
If previous editions of Maker Faire Shenzhen were testing grounds where inspiration sparked, this year we will see how creative ideas take root and become reality. This year’s event is officially scheduled for December 12–13, 2026, in Nanshan District, Shenzhen — and this time we are putting OPC creators and full-industry-chain service providers center stage, working together to build a “Mega Evolution Stage for Global Makers.”
In today’s “Meet the Maker”, we introduce one of this year’s exhibitors: a secondary school team from Hong Kong, China — Jockey Club Man Kwan EduYoung College — and their project, Fruit Ripeness Classifier.
The team comes from a secondary school in Hong Kong, China, with 16 people on the roster and CHUNG SZE HON as the contact. Their project, Fruit Ripeness Classifier, is an automated harvesting robot designed for smart agriculture: infrared and colour sensors judge whether a fruit is ripe, and a gentle servo-driven arm picks it without damage. The goal is both to stop fruit from being bruised at the picking stage and to lift farmers out of repetitive labour. It targets a problem that is specific and expensive in agriculture — losses caused by getting the judgment wrong.
See the fruit. Pick it gently. Waste less.
Project Spotlight: Fruit Ripeness Classifier
Fruit Ripeness Classifier is an automated harvesting robot built for smart agriculture. It works in two stages: look first, then pick.
Looking is handled by infrared and colour sensors, which determine whether the fruit has reached the right ripeness. Picking is handled by a servo-driven arm whose motion is deliberately gentle, so the fruit leaves the plant undamaged.
The design targets two very real problems. The first is misjudgment: ripeness is normally assessed by eye or by experience, and picking too early or too late both cause losses. The second is labour: harvesting is repetitive, physically demanding work, and as the agricultural workforce keeps shrinking it becomes harder and harder to staff.
The team states its goals plainly: reduce food waste and reduce the labour burden on farmers.
Notably, the project does not use AI (the application says so explicitly). Its judgment logic rests on physical signals such as infrared and colour — a sensor approach rather than a model-driven one.
Why it sits in the Cutting Edge Technologies track
The project is filed under Cutting Edge Technologies, serving agriculture, smart farming and logistics. The technology stack looks modest — sensors, servos and control logic — but assembled, it solves a real industry problem:
- Sensing: infrared and colour signals provide the basis for a ripeness call, replacing guesswork by hand and eye.
- Actuation: a servo-driven arm applies controlled force and posture, keeping mechanical damage low.
- Constraint: zero damage is the hard requirement — the value of harvesting depends on the fruit arriving at the next stage intact.
- Meaning: turning “by experience” into “with evidence” makes harvesting something that can be standardised and scaled.
The project lists SDG 2 Zero Hunger, SDG 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth, and SDG 12 Responsible Consumption and Production.
More Projects from the Team
- Super Hand Push Clearer — a second project the team submitted for display alongside Fruit Ripeness Classifier.
About the Team
Jockey Club Man Kwan EduYoung College is a secondary school in Hong Kong, China. This time they are bringing a team of 16 — unusual for a school exhibitor, and a sign that a substantial group of students is genuinely doing the work, from structural design and sensor tuning to arm control.
The team contact is CHUNG SZE HON.
Handing an agricultural robotics problem to secondary school students is itself a statement: not a demo-shaped assignment, but a real industry pain point, used to see what younger hands can come up with.
Experience Technology and Creativity First-Hand
At Maker Faire Shenzhen 2026, the team will be in the Makers and Teams zone. They have not flagged the project as an onsite-performance highlight, so the booth will centre on demonstrating and explaining the build.
Here is what you can do at their booth:
- See how the sensors judge ripeness, and how the arm completes a pick without bruising the fruit
- If you work in smart agriculture, orchard automation or produce sorting, talk through the technical approach with them
- If you are a teacher or a student, ask how a secondary school team got a robot this far
Links
- School website: jcmkec.edu.hk
- Project video: YouTube
We sincerely invite you to visit the Makers and Teams zone during the event, watch the robot judge ripeness and pick without damage, and talk with the students behind it.
If you would like to share your OPC ideas and experiences at China’s largest maker innovation celebration—and demonstrate how AI can truly become part of our work and everyday lives while solving real-world problems—this is your opportunity.
Let your project be seen by more peers, developers, partners, and potential customers, and allow new ideas to meet and grow here.
Scan the QR code below or click “Read the Original Article” at the end of the post to apply. Together, let us step into the era of OPC creators and unlock the infinite possibilities of the future!
Greater Bay Area International Maker Summit & Maker Faire Shenzhen 2026
Global Call for Makers Now Open
Application period: June 30–October 30, 2026
Event dates: December 12–13, 2026
P.S. Companies that reserved a booth last year do not need to submit another application. More participation opportunities will be announced soon—stay tuned!
Over the past 13 years, the development trajectory of Maker Faire Shenzhen can be seen as a microcosm of the development of maker culture in China.
- 2012: “Gathering Small Wisdom, Journeying through the Great Future” – This was the first Mini Maker Faire in China, with less than 1000 attendees, and was more like a gathering within a small circle. But we saw the infinite possibilities emerging from the maker community.
- 2013: The slogan was absent, and the maker community was still small. – In the OCT Creative Park, there were cross-disciplinary exchanges among different creative communities, silently laying the foundation for cultural output.
- 2014: “Innovate with China” – the event was upgraded to the Featured level for the first time, with a significant increase in scale compared to previous years, and the beginning of professional independent forums. This year, makers began to enter the public’s view.
- 2015: “Everyone is a Maker, what are you waiting for?” – This year’s Shenzhen International Maker Week became one of the largest Maker Faires in the world. This year, the concept of “maker” was elevated to a national level, and the trend of “mass innovation, mass entrepreneurship” swept across the country.
- 2016: “My World, My Creation” – As the sub-venue of the National Innovation and Entrepreneurship Week, the event was held for the first time in the commercial center area, experiencing unpredictable weather from typhoons to scorching heat. Many makers succeeded in your entrepreneurial endeavors this year, but it seemed like there were even more failures. The hype around entrepreneurship shifted towards rationality.
- 2017: “Makers, Go Pro” – The event took place at the university campus for the first time, focusing on Maker Pros and providing a platform for diverse innovators and makers to showcase themselves, presenting more possibilities for the growth path of makers to the entire community.
- 2018: “Co-making in the City” – The main venue of Shenzhen International Maker Week, where individuals and groups with shared visions and values gathered to showcase stories, projects, and explorations of collaboration among different communities and people.
- 2019: ” To the Heart of Community, To the Cluster of Industry” – The event was upgraded to the Maker Faire Shenzhen, attempting to attract professional audiences and focusing on pragmatic aspects such as solving the needs of industrial upgrading and co-developin. It aims to build a platform for innovation and industry dialogue and collaboration.
- 2023: “Where Are The Makers?”– Starting from our own mission and values, we aim to explore the future direction of makers and theapossibilities for commercialization. Though this question does not have a definitive answer, we do hope that through this event, we can communicate and share with every one of you, finding more ideas and directions together.
- 2024: “Everything is AI” – This year, we brought together over 120 exhibitors from around the world, attracting nearly 1,500 professional attendees from nearly 20 countries and over 20 provinces across China. The exhibition showcased a wide range of AI application projects and hosted 10 AI hardware-themed satellite events, alongside various workshops.
- 2025: “AI Without Boundaries, Everything Reimagined”The summit brought together nearly 100 international innovation ambassadors and showcased almost 1,000 AI hardware projects.Technology leaders, pioneering makers, industry experts, and university teams from more than 30 countries gathered to create an international innovation event combining frontier thinking, technical exchange, and cross-disciplinary collaboration.
