The Marina Orth Foundation excelled in robotics competition

10/23/2017 4973

We believe in the importance of developing logical and critical thinking in our students and educating empathic leaders who can work in teams and solve everyday life challenges. For this reason, we have worked for three consecutive years with our robotics clubs. After much effort put forth by our students, we were finally able to compete.

With three teams participating in the event, we demonstrated that the level of STEM+H skills that our students possess allowed us to successfully compete the other 145 robotics teams with 570 participants from 14 cities and regions of Colombia. All this in the framework of the Robotics and Innovation Week SRI2017, where we participated in the RoboRAVE Latin America Championship, a qualifying event for the RoboRAVE International Competition that will take place in the United States in 2018.

According to Alejandro Martínez, Manager of Pygmalion, one of the companies that organized the event, this is a space for children, young people, educators, university students and amateurs who seek motivation and inspiration through educational robotics to become future programmers, creators and engineers of the country.

OUR TEAMS:

“Circuit Breakers” from Santa Maria school in El Carmen de Viboral, Antioquia placed 18th out of 70 teams, in the “Pygmalion Challenge”, which consisted of clearing a series of obstacles. Despite this being their first time in the competition and with little time training, they were happy and very motivated to return in 2018 to improve these results.

“Digiminds” from Jóvenes Por La Paz school in the Santo Domingo branch of the Gente Unida Foundation ranked 3rd in their first participation in a robotics competition with a strong performance that assures them a place in the Robotics World Cup USA 2018.

“Little Engineers”, our all-female robotics team, who had been ranked fourth in the nation and tenth in the Robotics World Cup last year, also participated in the line follower challenge and, after a close race, finished in 2nd place and qualified for the Robotics World Cup for their 2nd consecutive year.

The three teams filled us with excitement with every attempt and movement by the robots; we celebrated and grieved because we knew they were leaving everything on the track. We are so proud of each and every one of them. Together they learned, had fun and were motivated to continue studying. The leadership of our teachers and the positive energy of the parents were fundamental in achieving these results.We ended this week with a sense of accomplishment and with the challenge of representing Colombia with two of the three teams that will be in the United States next year.