B.H.S. Robotics Team Heading to Geneva for First Global Competition
Belize High School was established in 2010 and since then has been leading the charge in robotics, as its students have been representing Belize internationally at a host of international robotics competitions. Next month, from October fourteenth to the sixteenth, a team of five students will be travelling to Geneva, Switzerland for a First Global Competition. They had to build a robot from scratch to execute several instructions. As News Five’s Duane Moody finds out, the competition is not about winning, but more about the participants from across the country seeing how this area of study can be integrated into everyday life. Here’s a report.
Melysa Choi
Melysa Choi, Team Belize
“This competition is not just about robotics, but it is also about gathering the youths around the world and finding a global solution to solve issues that’s harming our earth. This year, we’re focusing on a theme called carbon capture which deals with the greenhouse gases and what we can do to reduce climate change.”
Justin Zhou
Justin Zhou, Team Belize
“There will be six different countries playing on the game field at a time. They will be split into two different alliances and then working together, they will try to earn more points than the other.”
Benny He
Benny He, Team Belize
“One of the most important and vital aspects that we are bringing to that competition as you can see on my shirt, the Belizean spirit. We’re there proud to represent Belize, to share our friendliness, our liveliness, our vibrancy and we are also there to represent all the other cultures that Belize represents.”
Duane Moody, Reporting
Teams from over one hundred and eighty countries will converge in Geneva, Switzerland in mid-October for the First Global Competition which will focus on innovation and engineering. The goal is to get the robot to pick up carbon balls and deposit them.
Tristian Bradley
Tristian Bradley, Team Belize
“The main goal of this competition is not to compete against each other, but to work together through cooperation to solve our global problems. This is why we, team Belize, are looking forward to see all the ways other countries built their robots because we all got the same parts in kids, but each robot will be different on the game field.”
Jamie Usher
Jamie Usher, Principal, Belize High School
“This has to do a lot with presentation, public speaking, creativity, engineering, technology, mathematics. So when these kids arrive in all the countries that are participating, it is literally a box of parts. What then has to happen is the Belizean innovativeness has to get cultured by our mentors so that these students could look at what strategies they want to do when they get the game and then figure out what robot they will do to match the game. With robotics, it really locks you in because the skills that your robot knows is the skills that you told it or that your programmed it to learn. And so when these students from all over the world show up, it really is a phenomenal experience to be able to witness all the different types of robots, all the ways that they got the robot to do the tasks, because besides a few restrictions and limitations in terms of size, these students really had a carte blanche so that they can plan how they want to accomplish the task. And the fact that it is about carbon capture is really an excellent method that the First Global Foundation put together.”
It has taken these students many long hours, working after classes and even on weekends, to put the pieces together to ensure that the robot does exactly what it is supposed to do. They are guided by I.T. Director Godfrey Sosa, who says that the team stands ready to participate internationally.
Godfrey Sosa
Godfrey Sosa, I.T. Director, Belize High School
“We have ramped up a very excellent IT curriculum that encompasses programming. And for me I take that very dare because I do feel that programming is the way to go. So at an early start, we introduce them to the programming, the IT, all of the foundational that are involved in being able to partake in competitions like these. So we start off with foundation such as algorithm and design. We then move on into introductory programming languages; we then move on into intermediate and then into advance. So I can attest that these five students that you see here are the best of the best when it comes to programming.”
Duane Moody for News Five.
