B.H.S. Advances in Caribbean Girls Hackathon
The Belize High School has advanced in the Caribbean Girls Hackathon. It’s a regional event where programmers get together to find solutions for a real world problem. B.H.S. entered three teams and Team Paradox has qualified to move on to the next round. The team, made up of students Amali Teck, Gabbi Knox, Gianna Saldivar and Halle Fuller, used animation for the theme of keeping the seas and ocean clean.
Jamie Usher
Jamie Usher, Principal, Belize High School
“The hackathon became something where we really made a name for Belize in 2019, winning the national chance at the hackathon with our team and then we stepped up internationally with the Caribbean Girls Hackathon and what we saw was a chance for our students not to be isolated and segregating their subjects but a chance for them to be looking at these subjects as a bundle. Here in the middle of the pandemic, we see the benefits of bundling up students’ exposure to be able to have a wide variety of learning happening. What we saw that bloomed into is Ms Young taking up the opportunities for our girls. We actually had three teams participate in this. So, they had a chance to put out for Belize three different teams and we are excited to share that they have advanced to the second round.”
Marcelli Young
Marcelli Young, Team Mentor, Belize High School
“The challenge this year also is that it is called a techno creativity hackathon. So, it is a combination of technology and creative arts. So, this year gave us an extra opportunity to include the students that are not necessarily in our IT department but girls in the Science and Business departments, etc…so that they can have an infusion into what we are doing. This team Paradox chose to do animation. So, the students get to see the problem solving aspect of any situation. They get to see the critical, analytical thinking that is needed in any situation and then we just add on the technical components for them to display their solution. In terms of robotics, we are fortunate that this team made it to the final round because they will be working with a robot to demonstrate their solution idea. For the pitch that was done over this weekend, what they did was an animated version of what their robot is going to simulate and we are hoping to go and take a short trip together to the San Ignacio area to see how they are cleaning the river. And this team in particular is focusing on keeping our oceans clean but we want to take it a little further and show keeping our rivers clean as well.”
Amali Teck
Amali Teck, Captain, Team Paradox, B.H.S.
“The most skill I have learnt from this competition is time management. I learnt a lot from this hackathon and will want to participate in other competitions as well.”
Andrea Polanco
“Now talk to us about your contributions to the team; how did you help them advance to the second round?”
Amali Teck
“My team members helped me to help them; not just me helping them. They are really creative; Gabby is a great artist; she helped me with the video animation; Halle is a great artist in a musician way she helped me with the background music for the video; Gianna is also great artist in that she helped us draw concepts and helped to bring ideas together; with my help of organizing and telling them my ideas how I captured the video, they helped pitched into that and made us go to the second round.”
