The US Export Administration Regulations prohibit export of certain enabling technologies to embargoed countries. The country list varies depending on what technologies we're talking about, and applies to anything made in the US from little baby diodes to full up integrated products. Their concern is the end use of the product and country of destination. In this case, you can pretty safely state the end use (an education robot) and country of destination (your team's country).
Disclaimer: I Am Not A Lawyer, nor an Export Control Officer. I have had the (mis?)fortune to deal with the EAR and other export control issues during purchasing, marketing, and sales of various products I've designed. This stuff all sounds far more scary than the actual burden on the hobbyist.
If you're the type who just
LOVES to read stuffy documents on a .gov site, see below. Encoders (and all sorts of other electronics) are subject to the EAR under Category 3 of the Commerce Control List:
https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/fo...nload/990-ccl3