FOLLOWING three weeks of intense competition, the Robo Swan team from St Hugh’s Preparatory School walked away as the overall champions at the finals of the Jamaica leg of the World Robot Olympiad (WRO). The final event, which saw four teams — Robo Swan, Robot Warriors, Tech Titans and Building Masters — going head-to-head in various rounds of competition, was held at the office of the Halls of Learning in Kingston.

Halls of Learning (HoL), a technology-based social enterprise, was founded in 2003 by Marvin Hall, an educational technologist. HoL is the national organiser for WRO Jamaica.

The winning team, which consisted of students Zoey Clarke, Maleika Tulloch and Samori Edwards, will have the opportunity to represent Jamaica at the WRO global competition in Türkiye (Turkey) in November this year.

“We are so excited to be the winners; all our hard work has paid off,” the students shared. The team was coached by Diandra Heppell Sukhu and Marc Whyte.

The Robo Swan team dominated the finals, winning all three of their matches, racking up points that ultimately led to their victory. The finals were done in a round-robin format with all four teams playing each other. In addition to taking the overall prize, Robo Swan also won other special awards for highest robot run, robot kaizen or continuous improvement, and the most consistent robot. RoboFlash from Mona Prep, though not a finalist, won the benevolence excellence award.

“It is exciting to watch the students and see how genuinely interested and enthused they are when participating in the competition, and it is our hope at Seprod Foundation to be able to expose as many students to STEM education, as we truly believe that it is a pathway to nurturing problem-solving skills that can enhance our society overall,” said Lisa D’Oyen, executive director, Seprod Foundation.

D’Oyen added that STEM education is one of the foundation’s primary pillars of focus and is always pleased to partner with Halls of Learning to execute its Code Jamaica programmes as well as other STEM-focused initiatives.

D’Oyen congratulated all the participants, particularly commending the teams in the finals for their drive, enthusiasm, imagination, technical abilities and mental agility to have advanced so far in the competition.

Hall explained that the WRO RoboMission category is challenge-based where students must design, construct and programme an autonomous robot that can solve specific challenges on a field. All parts of the robot, including controller, motors and sensors must be from Lego.

He shared that there is an upcoming Future Innovators category of WRO that allow teams to create their own innovative robotic solutions to real world problems. For this category, teams are not restricted to using Lego and can use any materials to design the robot, controllers, motors, sensors, and other parts of the robot

On June 22, the participating teams will showcase their projects at the Code Jamaica Expo, powered by Halls of Learning and Seprod Foundation. The expo will also feature robotics demonstrations.