Holy Rosary church team excels at robotics expo

A young and talented group from the Holy Rosary Roman Catholic Church yesterday won first place at Guyana’s inaugural robot and technology exhibition.

Held at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall, Homestretch Avenue, the exhibition was facilitated by STEMGuyana, which will also enable a local team’s participation at the First Global Robotics competition in Washington DC.

Co-founder of STEMGuyana Karen Abrams, in an invited comment, said the event saw a high turnout in spite of the rain. “I was only surprised by the turnout because of the rain; the rain fell all night and I was worried about flooding and people not being able to come. But people came out and just kept coming and coming even when we were getting ready to pack up,” Abrams related.

The event featured more than 16 robot exhibits created under the themes of Education, Healthcare, Oil and Gas, Agriculture and Games and presented by the STEM clubs that were gifted robot kits after STEMGuyana’s inaugural robot building and programming summer camp in 2016.

“We had the young people who received robot kits last summer and who represented several clubs in Guyana, display their robots to a lot of people in the community and I believe that it went really well. A lot of people were enthusiastic and asked us a lot of questions to start their own STEM clubs in their communities and I believe that it was quite successful,” Abrams added.

As it relates to the determination of yesterday’s winner, Abrams explained that each presentation was judged by representatives of three sponsors of the event: Farfan and Mendes, Starr Computers and Gizmos and Gadgets. In essence, the judges were asked to award points First Lady Sandra Granger (left) and Co-Founder of STEM-Guyana Karen Abrams observing a demonstration by one of the participating teams.

based on professionalism, creativity of project and audience reception. At stake was a drone for the winning club.

Based on the accumulated points awarded by the judges, the team representing the Holy Rosary Roman Catholic Church won, followed by the Lusignan/Good Hope Learning Centre, North Ruimveldt Church of the Nazarene and St Rose’s High School.

Meanwhile, Abrams related that STEMGuyana is working to have such events several times a year across Guyana.

“We want to take it to Essequibo. We want to take it to Berbice and we want to take it to Linden…,” she said. “Our goal is to expand the programme and to go into as many communities as we can but to do that we will need the community support and we just want to encourage everyone to support us as much as possible….”