Guyana is now among the top 25% robotic teams worldwide following its fighting performance in the recently completed ‘First Global Robotic’ competition in Dubai where they gained six victories and three losses which earned them an overall ranking of 39 out of the 190 countries who competed.
The team also won the Albert Einstein gold medal for excellence. The medal is awarded in gold, silver and bronze to the team whose robots performed the best during the first global challenge. It is essentially the top individual team award given by competition judges.
This award is an ode to the overall outstanding design and performance of Team Guyana’s robot. 190 countries participated in this global robotics competition where teams competed in alliances of 3 teams from various countries.
Highlighting the difficult journey to the competition, a release from Stem Guyana said that when the team of eight Guyanese youths representing Hague, Timehri, Enmore and Georgetown arrived at the Cheddi Jagan airport on their way to the global robotics event in Dubai, they were told that because the robot was packed in a wooden crate it will have to be left behind.
“It was truly a blessing that one team member was routed through NY (New York) the very next day and was called upon to deliver the robot to Dubai,” the release said adding that the robot finally arrived until 10pm the night before kickoff.
The team, the release said, however remained upbeat and worked through the night to fix the damage the robot sustained during its transport in a cartoon box.
“Sleep deprived but determined to represent Guyana well over the three days of competition, the team of Guyanese youth rose to the occasion,” it added. The first day saw the team winning two out of three games and loss was due to failure of a motor which stopped the team from shooting to earn points. The team ended the day in 24th overall ranking. On the second day the team played four games and began with two brilliant back to back victories and two painful losses, one well-earned but the other due to another failure of a motor on the robot.
The release stated that the losses dropped the team into 62nd ranking and placed tremendous pressure on the young team to win both final games on day three. Day three brought victories and high scores as team Guyana members worked together to execute their game strategies and rally back to end the day among the 25% of teams in the world.
This year, the First Global organization hosted 190 national teams out of the 195 countries in the world. It was the largest and most competitive global competition to date and teams which are mentored by large, well known engineering firms in their home countries often do very well. Team Guyana and their extended community of mentors and supporters all contributed to the design of a superior machine, proving to the world that a tiny country of 750,000 people could compete favourably against youths from wealthy nations with access to more resources.