AT 19 years old Rayon-Jai Pusey is preparing for one of the biggest challenges of his young career.

The HEART College of Innovation and Technology (HCIT) student is among five competitors selected to represent Jamaica at the WorldSkills Competition in Shanghai, China, in September.

Alongside teammate Antonio Rolong, Pusey will compete in Autonomous Mobile Robotics (AMR), a field that combines engineering, programming and problem-solving to create robots capable of operating independently.

His passion for technology can be traced back to childhood.

Raised around computers, he credits his mother — an information technology teacher at Green Island High School — for nurturing his interest in the field.

From the days of floppy disks to experimenting with Arduino microcontrollers, technology became a constant presence in his life.

He said his journey to the international stage began unexpectedly.

Pusey was focused on his studies in the AMR programme at HCIT, a 24-month course that he is now close to completing.

When his teacher informed him that he and fellow a student, Ryan Gibson, would be participating in the National Skills Competition in 2025, he embraced the opportunity.

“I was like, ‘Okay, cool.’ We’ve been familiar with the kits since the start of the year, we’ve been experimenting since we were told to experiment, and we were confident enough to put ourselves on the national stage,” he shared.

The national competition introduced him to the WorldSkills movement and opened a pathway that has now led to an international assignment.

“Autonomous mobile robotics, in a nutshell, deals with the movement of robots autonomously, without human interaction. We deal with modules like vision, navigation, and localisation. And then, of course, there is the fabrication of the robot — which is the building, testing and ensuring that everything works properly,” he explained.

WorldSkills Jamaica competitor Rayon-Jai Pusey carefully tightens a screw on the robot he built alongside his teammate, Antonio Rolong, during the WorldSkills Jamaica and Studica Robotics Invitational Camp held at Cardiff Hotel & Spa in Runaway Bay, St Ann, from June 8 to 12.

Coding is also a critical part of the process, he shared, noting that, fortunately, they are able to test and review their code before the competition.

Success in the field requires technical knowledge, dedication, teamwork, and long hours of preparation.

In the lead-up to competition Rayon-Jai and Antonio have adopted a demanding training schedule.

Their days often begin at 5:00 am or 5:30 am with exercise, followed by intensive training sessions at the Derrick Rochester Campus in Junction, St Elizabeth.

“So far, preparation has been good. There have been a lot of laughs. There has been a lot of progress. Antonio is the main programmer, though I do have proficiency in programming as well. So, he starts the programming and I fix the mechanical parts. I help him fix bugs in the code and then we are up until maybe two in the morning and then we start the cycle again. Eat, sleep, repeat,” he shared.

He considers it a great privilege to be a member of the WorldSkills Jamaica team, describing it as, “Growing up on the more not-so-known side of the country, in the west — Hanover, a little town called, Green Island — to being placed on the world stage and given the opportunity to prove my skills.”

Now, as he prepares to represent Jamaica, Rayon-Jai believes the country must continue investing in technical and vocational skills to meet the demands of a rapidly changing world.

“We need robotics. We need the coders. We need to encourage kids to get into coding, especially from [when they are] young. I started at 12 with an Arduino and a dream,” he said.

Looking beyond WorldSkills, he has clear ambitions for the future.

“I aspire to be a mechanical engineer. I want to come back to HEART and make it better,” he said.

– JIS News