A rural non-denominational secondary school has come out on top of UTT’s first Sustainabots Robotics Competition.
It was open to schools nationwide and saw 26 teams from over a dozen schools participate, with Rio Claro West Secondary School taking the winning prize.
Reporter Cindy Raghubar-Teekersingh attended the prize giving ceremony held at the University’s San Fernando campus, which was sponsored by Shell TT on Wednesday and tells us more.
00:00The field of robotics has become increasingly attractive and ventured into by more and more schools across the country
00:08but is still far from where President of the University of Trinidad and Tobago hopes it could be.
00:15I think a greater emphasis must be placed on STEM education in schools.
00:20And I think this is one area we are lacking in.
00:23When we talk about entrepreneurship, STEM or STEAM research drives entrepreneurship.
00:29And therefore it must be done at the school level.
00:32His comments came at the prize-giving ceremony for UTT's first Sustainabots Robotics competition held on Wednesday.
00:40Fourteen schools entered a total of 26 teams back in January, which came down to a final 11.
00:49And to even the winners' surprise, the top spot was copped by the unlikely rural, non-denominational Rio Claro West Secondary School.
00:59Today we did the unbelievable task.
01:02We were not expecting this, but we won the Sustainable Design Challenge competition.
01:09I want Trinidad and Tobago to know that we are a government school.
01:14We are recognized. We have talented, educated children here who are willing to make changes into the world and be the next leaders.
01:27Computer science teacher Ms. Kavita Setahal-Ratches says it was only their second attempt at a robotics competition
01:35and knowing they were up against many prestigious denominational schools, their expectations were modest.
01:42Instead, their PUI partner's Lionsman robot impressed judges the most.
01:49It's designed to save lives, really. It replaces a human's job with a lion's one.
01:57It cleans debris and pastures on lions so that people won't get electrocuted or debris can fall on them and they won't die.
02:08But Rio Claro West didn't just leave with the overall winning prize, which carried a $25,000 cash reward.
02:15Their second entry won the Most Innovative Team Award for their creation of Mr. Manny,
02:22a maths teaching assistant in the model of a manikou.
02:26Hello. My name is Manny. How can I assist you with simple interest questions today?
02:32There were many other impressive creations, like this RoboGuard, a plastic bottle prototype that releases a chicken-hawk bird call to deter pest intruders
02:44and sets off signals and alarms for human intruders, a pretty last-knit defense mechanism created by the Five Rivers Secondary School team.
02:54UTT program leader of the Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing and Entrepreneurship Unit, Dr. Nadine Sangster,
03:02was thrilled to see the students' creations, which needed to be aligned with any of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.
03:10We wanted to promote STEM education and really promote technological literacy, which is crucial for the future.
03:19And we thought by engaging students in real-world engineering challenges within a team environment,
03:29we could inspire their interest in pursuing careers in these fields.
03:36President Pasad says the projects were impressive and of university standard,
03:41with many incorporating culture and art, showing just how integral people are in the furtherance of robotics.
03:50The combination of art and technology. Now AI may be the buzzword now,
03:59but AI really is increasing the carbon footprint by 48 percent, Google,
04:04by having all these computers analyzing all these things.
04:07It's just they have a lot more computing power.
04:10But AI, and for some time to come, can beat NI, natural intelligence, that people are using for AI.
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