Guo introduces a robot to the judges at a startup contest for college students in 2014. [Photo provided to China Daily]

A career takes flight

Guo majored in electrical engineering and automation at Qingdao Agricultural University in 2010. He didn't have a clear direction until he took part in a water rocket competition in his freshman year at college. A water rocket is a ballistic model, typically made from plastic soda bottles, that uses water as its propellant.

The competition Guo entered scored the rockets based on the height they achieved and "hang time", or how long they stayed airborne.

Guo studied the previous results of the competition and noticed that under the rules a breakthrough in height would be difficult, so he turned his focus on the duration it stayed there.

He added a parachute to the top of his design to prolong the landing time. The next challenge was to decide when and how to open the parachute. After several trials, he put a small firecracker on the rocket which would open the parachute and blow away the nose cone at the same time.

Guo used a remote controller to ignite the firecracker. The battery to charge the remote-control equipment was taken from his phone.

With this level of diligence and application, it's perhaps no surprise that his water rocket won first prize and he also snagged the award for creativity.

In 2011, Guo discovered his passion in the laboratory, where he had access to more than enough tools and pieces of specialist equipment to realize his creative ideas.

Since then, that's where he has spent most of his time and the effort has brought him many awards, scholarships, published papers and patents, including a national youth technology innovation award in 2014.

Guo is observant, and most of his inventions are inspired by the needs of everyday life.

He visited farmland around Shouguang in Shandong province as his social practice during his winter vacation in 2012. He noticed that the farmers expended a lot effort manually opening and closing the ceiling coverings of their greenhouses.