Presentation College, Chaguanas 3rd place in global robotics competition

NOT many can boast of placing in the top three in a global competition. But the members of Presentation College, Chaguanas’ robotics team sure can. The students placed third in a joint effort with three other countries at the First Global Challenge in Athens, Greece.

The seventh edition of the competition, held from September 26-29, featured students from over 190 countries. Its website says the idea behind the challenge was for one team from each country to “participate and focus the world on the amazing things that happen when kids from every country work together to solve problems through STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).”

This year’s theme was Feeding the Future, which focuses on sustainable food production.

“This year’s theme challenges teams to learn about and address the obstacles and opportunities to provide the global population with equitable, safe, nutritious, and environmentally responsible food,” the website adds.

Trinidad and Tobago’s team travelling included Xavier Blache, Kovid Capildeo, Xavier Edwards, Sameer Badree, Justin Basdeo and Sarmad Singh.

What they call the “ground team,” which also contributed to their efforts, included Vasudev Rampersad, Adam Baig, Naveen Singh, Avesh Ragoonath, Jamian Leopold, Vivek Bahadur Singh, and Aidan Singh.

Every year, the event provides teams with a kit in their home country, with parts such as steel rods, aluminium channels, motors, wheels, etc. The students then have to build a robot that meets specific criteria like size and ability to rise to a certain height.

There were 12 qualifying matches at the competition, from which 32 countries were selected for the semi-final rounds. For the finals, the qualifying teams were then split into alliances.

The challenge/game this year was a two-and-a-half-minute match in which one “alliance” battled another. An alliance in the challenge consisted of four different countries’ teams joining forces. Trinidad and Tobago teamed up with Estonia, Singapore and Guam, forming alliance eight.

The aim was to conserve water and energy and produce food. Then all six teams worked together as a “global alliance” to secure food and balance global resources to make a sustainable food system.

Coloured spheres were used to represent different elements – blue for water, green for energy, and orange for food. The robots, as well as selected human players, assisted in the process.

Blache, the team’s captain, told Newsday the experience was “a mix of excitement and education.”

“The excitement came from seeing so many different people around my age from different countries who have the same passion. And then for education, the event is not just about competing but learning about new technologies and hearing all the different ideas people have on solving a world challenge.”

The 18-year-old upper-six student is an aspiring software engineer. He said he got into robotics when he was in standard five after doing his first coding course. He currently studies pure and applied mathematics, physics, computer science and IT.

He recalled long days at nights at the school, even during vacation time, in preparation for the event. In fact, he said, practice began about a year ago.

“We entered the competition last year, too. So (afterwards) we started practising with the parts from that one.”

He said while he was part of the travelling team last year, his role was “more minor.

“Then a colleague of mine, Justin Basdeo, came to me and said, ‘Blache, let’s go and experiment with the parts.’ And throughout (last year), we experimented and got accustomed to the parts. So when the actual challenge was released this year in late June, we had a bit more familiarity.

“We created an Omni base that could drive in any direction.”

He said there were times they were still at school practising at 9 pm or even 11 pm.

Capildeo agreed, saying his teammates were “running on caffeine” during the final days of preparations.

“I didn’t stay as late as Blache did, but they really would be there until almost midnight until they were completely exhausted. Then, they would come back to school like normal the next morning.

“They were really giving it their all, physically and mentally, to make sure this robot could be built in time to ship.”

Capildeo, 18, studies maths, physics, chemistry and communication studies and has been on the robotics team for about three years.

He added that once they completed everything in time, it was on to the near 26-hour journey to Greece.

“I think there's a team picture we took when we finally landed in Greece where everybody was just looking really exhausted,” he said, laughing.

“And the competition itself started maybe two days after, and every day, we had to be out of the hotel before 7.30 am.”

Suffice it to say they continued running on caffeine. Capildeo was the human player for Trinidad and Tobago.

Trying his best to explain in layman’s terms what their robot did, Blache said, “It has to place one energy and one water ball within the goal to release a food ball, and once the food ball is released onto the playing field, the robot has to capture the food ball and bring it back to the human player.”

This, he said, was repeated throughout the game.

“...Because the purpose of the game is a physical representation that all countries must work together to combine water and energy to create food, and the food has to be brought back and stored and the stored food gives points to everyone (on the team).”

Capildeo praised Basdeo, the team’s head engineer, who “spent a lot of time going to help out other countries.

“A lot of the other Caribbean countries that came, their robots might have got partially damaged in transit. Justin actually used a lot of his free time helping countries like the US Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, Bermuda…And this would be from in the morning up until the night.

“Sometimes we'd reach the hotel at 10 pm and try to get as much sleep as we possibly could to go the next day again.”

He said he is certain there were nights they only got one or two hours of sleep.

Robotics is for everyone

Although he knew the team worked hard, Blache was shocked when he heard they had placed third.

“I didn't even know what to feel at that point.

“Because seeing that we, a team of boys who had little experience in robotics before joining, placed third in the world…Something like that is an amazing experience.”

He said this is why he encourages other students to join the team, as many doubt themselves.

“A lot of them feel that you have to be a top, top person in class to join robotics, or you have to have some sort of know-how in tech before you join robotics. But in the end, truly, it's not that. It's really just taking the step to try.”

Alliance number three (China, Moldova, Madagascar, Cook Islands) won the competition with 338 points, and alliance seven (Uzbekistan, Cambodia, Poland, Ethiopia) came second with 333 points.

Trinidad and Tobago’s alliance, eight, got 324 points.

Capildeo said similarly, he was “in disbelief and astonishment” on hearing the results.

“I knew how hard my team had worked, and I was happy that we kind of got rewarded for it all in the end…We showed the world that we are country that's capable of doing these kind of things.”

“I remember right after, we met we all hugged up each other because we just couldn't believe it,” he added.

They also placed first in the category of social media and got a blue ribbon for it. This was based on challenges the competition had from July.

Echoing his captain’s sentiments, Capildeo said, “Robotics is for everybody and everybody should give it a try.

“A lot of the people that came in and helped a lot of the students wouldn't have been as involved in robotics before, and they hadn't studied any of the theory…and they were still really, really good at it.

“Passion and love and genuine desire and drive to keep going and understand it all really helps.”

The students were accompanied by principal Dr Rene Wihby, and mentors Collin Samaru and Tricia Singh.

Singh recalled “not being able to breathe" (properly) during the semi-finals owing to her nervousness looking on.

“(After), the students told me they were also nervous, they were scared, they weren't sure if they could do it…But they said when they looked in the crowd and they saw the red, white and black, they were like, ‘We could definitely do it.’

“Most of the supporters were parents, siblings; we had the current principal and two past principals there from the school as well.”

She said she is very proud of the students and their work ethic.