Bintulu Hawks soar high at world robotics competition in New Delhi
KUCHING: SMK Bintulu’s Bintulu Hawks bagged the Excellence Award for their creations in the recent World Robot Olympiad ( WRO) 2016 held in New Delhi, India.
The team– consisting of students Joel Yang, Christian Caleb Shane and Ronan Ling led by their coach Yong Yee Yung– also won sixth place in the Open (Junior High) category.
The international competition held on Nov 24-28 at the India Expo Centre saw participation from 57 countries, including 19 teams from across Malaysia.
SMK Bintulu principal Ananthan Subramaniam told The Borneo Post that he was very pleased with the performance of the Bintulu Hawks.
“We want to thank the Education Ministry, State Education Department, Bintulu District Education Office, the coaches and students for making this possible.
“I must say our students have made us proud and we hope they can do better and continue to represent Malaysia in WRO 2017 which will be held in Costa Rica,” said Ananthan.
SMK Bintulu has done the state and country proud in a number of national and international robotics competitions.
In September, it won the gold medal in the Junior High Open Category during the National Robotics Competition ( NRC) 2016 held at Universiti Teknologi Petronas at Seri Iskandar, Perak to qualify to compete in WRO in New Delhi.
Earlier in July, the school put Malaysia on the map by winning the Presentation Award in the First Lego League ( FLL) Asia Pacific Open Championship 2016 held at Macquarie University, Australia where a total of 40 teams from 21 countries took part in the competition.
In May, the school won the national overall championship title as well as fifth place in the Robot Performance category for FLL Malaysia 2016 in Kuala Lumpur which qualified them for the regional competition in Australia.
These competitions aim to enable participants to develop and strengthen critical and creative thinking and social skills such as problem- solving and collaborative teamwork which are essential prerequisites for success in further studies and future careers.
In terms of objectives, the robotic competitions also aim to help students to build a solid foundation in mathematics, science, technology, design and ICT through hands- on experience or investigation.
It is also to enable students to develop logical and systematic thinking as they plan and implement programmes through the programming of robots as well as to promote competition in robotics amongst Malaysian school students as a healthy and fulfilling pastime.