…as team cops Albert Einstein gold medal
After three days of intense robotic battles, Guyana’s robotics team has earned a place for the country among the elite top 25 per cent robotics teams worldwide, after the FIRST Global Robotics Competition concluded in Dubai on Sunday. The tournament saw the Guyanese team securing six victories and three losses with a ranking of 39th place out of a total of 190 participating countries.
However, the country’s ranking was due to the team’s excellent performance which was evident when they won the Albert Einstein gold medal for excellence, a prestigious award given to teams whose robots performed the best during the FIRST Global Challenge and exemplified all the tenets of the FIRST Global community.
In a statement on Sunday, StemGuyana reported that its eight-member team – all members of StemGuyana – overcame several challenges leading up to the awards. Chief among these was the extreme delay of the team’s robot’s arrival in Dubai to partake in the competition.
“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, they wouldn’t be able to travel with their prized possession to the global tourney. It was truly a blessing that one team member was routed through NY the very next day and was called upon to deliver the robot to Dubai. The story gets infinitely more complicated but suffice to say that the robot did not arrive until 10 pm the night before kickoff,” StemGuyana stated.
Meanwhile, commenting on the team’s performance during the competition period, the local technology group highlighted that days one and two, were comprised of both wins and losses but the final day went in complete favour of team Guyana.
“Day one saw the Team Guyana alliance winning two out of three games, the loss due to failure of a motor which stopped the team from shooting to earn points. The team ended the day in 24th overall ranking. Day two’s play of four games began with two brilliant back to back victories and 2 painful losses, one well-earned but the other due to another failure of a motor on the robot. The losses dropped Team Guyana into 62nd ranking and put 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 elite 25 per cent of teams in the world,” they explained.
This year, the FIRST Global organisation 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.
