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The Philip Goldson Airport was bustling with more excitement than usual this afternoon, as students, parents and Media, swarmed the arrivals gate to greet the championing Belize Highschool Robotics Team who returned to country, with Silver medals in hand after competing in a tight three day international Robotics competition in Singapore. Jomarie Lanza reports:
Five out of the 17 Belize High School Robotics Team members flew in this afternoon along with their mentors, and other supporters. Proudly wearing their silver medals, showered with praises and admiration from the welcoming committee, after swiping second place among 191 countries in this year's FIRST Global Challenge which took place in Singapore from October 7th to 10th. We caught up with the team at the airport and they shared their experiences at their second international robotics tournament
Karii Domingo, Belize Robotics Team
"So our experience in Singapore was nothing but a thrill ride of emotions. Getting there you enter a building with 191 other countries and they all have different robots but we all get the same kit so its about seeing the ingenuity and creativity between each robot which was really inspiring to all of us because we got to see the thought process behind every country to complete the challenge."
Sebastian Garcia, Belize Robotics team
"Last year Team Belize was a part of the winning alliance that won gold in Geneva Switzerland, this year team belize won the Zheng Heng engineering design award. We came ins second place to China and that and thats a very impressive feat and a feature that allowed for our robot to earn the medal was our cascade. A cascade is a climbing system that can be for many different things and for this case we used it for lifting our box and climbing. This impressed many judges because our cascade included wire management in which we used a coil for no cables to be able to get stuck."
Uday Tilwani, Belize Robotics Team
"As the driver of the team I got to communicate with so many other teams, strategize and divide up the gang in different parts so we can all work towards one joint task. I strategize with other teams and even with language barriers we still managed to complete and just in case when things didnt go as planned we still had to keep our eyes out and communicate live during the match so we can assist other teams just in case."
Evie Li, Belize Robotics Team
"Doing the challenge I coordinated with different countries, we had a meeting with them and we learned a lot of things from them like their culture, the countries background and the language they spoke and also we introduced Belize to them so more people can know about Belize."
Jason Zhou, Belize Robotics Team
"In Belize as part of the team I was given the role of programmer which was one of the four major roles and its like being behind a computer, looking at code initializing it trying to improve it along the way and its a lot of screen time."
Not only did the team bring home the Silver, but they were also recognized for their Technology and engineering skills. They were given the Zheng Heng Award for Engineering and Design after displaying excellent robotic engineering skills during the competition.
Godfrey Sosa, Coach, BHS Robotics Team
"It says a lot for our country, a lot for the ingenuity of our people and I'm very proud of these students all 17 students who are part of the robotics team unfortunately we only had five that could represent the team but it's a big win for them and also for the country of Belize. Coming second to China that sends a huge message of the ingenuity of our people, the creativity of our people and actually being able to present a robot that Awe and Wowed the judges to the point of actually earning a medal and earning a win in this particular, and I would say a very prestigious category because the engineering award does say a lot about your ability and being able to present a robot that functions efficiently that has something on it and has components that they have never seen and they were impressed with so i must say that I am proud of them and I am proud of our country once again we keep putting our country out there and we keep representing fully."
The historical win has turned the heads of many Belizeans, so much so that the team's dedication and hard work leading up to the tournament, motivated the National Sports council to officially recognize Robotics as a Sport in Belize.
Rodwell Ferguson, Minister of Sports
"It's a very significant milestone today and then we declared robotics as a sport and many would say why robotics? What would you declare them as and then likewise I go back to dominos and say dominos is not a sport in reality but it uses the mind and so robotics also uses the mind so we as a ministry of sports have agreed to make it a sports in Belize so we are the first country in the world I believe that has made robotics a sports. And I am very happy at the accomplishments and achievements, we are a country of 400,000 people. The only country that did better than them Is China which is almost two billion people. And out of 191 countries we placed second that is very very significant. The whole country should celebrate for that today."
And now that the Minister has endorsed the sport the team will now begin to prepare for its next international championship with additional support and resources from the Ministry of sports.
The Team is set to compete in their third International Tournament in March of 2024.
