ST. CROIX — The Project Promise Robotics Team is representing the Virgin Islands at a four-day educational robotics competition this week in Athens, Greece with participating students from more than 190 countries.
The youth from St. Croix who are on the Robotics Team will participate from Thursday to Sunday in the FIRST Global Challenge, an Olympic-style, international robotics competition that takes place in a different country each year.
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization with a mission to inspire leadership and innovation in youth from all nations by empowering them through education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM.
While two of the students on the team participated in last year’s competition held in Singapore, the experience will be new for the other teammates. Project Promise traveled with the official five-member team as well as a couple alternates. The official team members are Jiya Banani, 13, a freshman at St. Croix Educational Complex High School; Nnenaya Bedminster; Ziva Caleb, 15, a sophomore at St. Croix Central High School; C’Niyah Smith, 13, a freshman at Complex; and Ethan Valery, 14, a freshman at Complex. The two additional team members who made the trip are Pari Banani, 11, a seventh grader at Free Will Baptist Christian School, and Isolde Diaz Belle, 16, a junior at Complex. Caleb and Belle are the two members who participated in last year’s competition.
“This is an amazing opportunity for Team U.S. Virgin Islands,” said Resa O’Reilly Shearn, founder and executive director of Project Promise, a St. Croix-based nonprofit whose vision is to give at-risk youth the tools and support they need to live healthier lives. “Last year we got our first invite, and we headed to Singapore, and that was an absolutely incredible experience.”
During the FIRST Global Challenge, teams work together to complete tasks in a game themed around one of the greatest challenges facing the planet to foster understanding and cooperation among the youth of the world as they use their abilities to solve the world’s problems, according to FIRST Global. This year’s competition is centered on the theme, “Feeding the Future,” which challenges the students to learn about and address the obstacles and opportunities to provide the global population with equitable, safe, nutritious, and environmentally responsible food.
“It’s really incredible,” Shearn, who traveled to Greece with the team, said about the robotics challenge. “It’s a unique opportunity for the kids to learn from and interact with students from all over the world. They don’t call it a competition. They call it a ‘co-opetition,’ which I think is amazing. So, it’s like you’re cooperating with different countries in this challenge.”
The team met for two hours every Saturday at the Project Promise headquarters on Queen Street in Christiansted for the past couple months to prepare for the challenge with assistance from their instructor, Brenda English, a professor at the University of the Virgin Islands who teaches two computer courses. She discussed how the students benefited from the experience.
“Their confidence level soared when they started, first of all,” English said. “Additionally, they developed teamwork.”
English said she began her instruction with the students by teaching them about robots, identifying the components of robots, and reviewing the types of functions that control robots. She said robots have actuators that allow movement and sensors that monitor the environment. She said programming the robots is required to control them. She said the students operate their robot using a PlayStation controller connected to a driver hub that speaks to the robot after pairing the driver hub with the control hub.
English, who joined the team as its instructor for the first time this year, said she accepted the invitation because she was interested in Project Promise, and she likes getting involved in guiding “our young people.” She said she is already looking forward to preparing the Robotics Team to participate in next year’s global challenge.
“I see that it gives us sort of the platform to start expanding robotics education here in the Virgin Islands,” she said.
After receiving the official robotics kit, the students worked together with English to assemble and program the robot.
“The objective was twofold,” English said. “One, to build a frame. And then two, to program it so that it can move and maneuver and do what it needs to get done for the challenge.”
The “Feeding the Future” Robotics Challenge game requires teams to maneuver their robots in a simulated world that emphasizes the intricate and interdependent relationship between water, energy and food systems, all three of which are represented by different colored balls. During the two-and-a-half-minute challenge, two regional alliances composed of three robotics teams work independently to conserve water and energy and produce food by using their robots to transport the colored balls to designated areas, earning points along the way. The teams participate in multiple competitions.
Isolde Diaz Belle, 16, a junior at St. Croix Educational Complex High School, is one of the teammates who participated in last year’s competition. She discussed what she gained from the experience.
“One of the things that I think I learned is how to never give up, even if you’re having difficulties or challenges trying to accomplish something,” Belle said. “And one of the things I thought was most satisfying about competing was seeing all your hard work result to something — like seeing you gain points, seeing your team gain points, your alliance win a match. I think that was one of the most satisfying parts.”
While Belle is familiar with the competition and knows what to expect, her teammate Ethan Valery is eager to participate in his first robotics challenge.
“I find this experience really exciting because it gives me firsthand experience on building a robot,” Valery, 14, a freshman at Complex, said. “It teaches me how to solve problems that I deal with. It teaches me how to be in a leadership role, how to do something. The pleasant feeling I get is that when I go to Greece, I expect this robot to go exactly how we plan, and if it does, I feel like that would be really satisfying.”
While working with the students to build the robot, English stressed the importance of constructing a sturdy frame, or drivetrain.
“For me, I want to see this drivetrain move with a ball,” she told the students during one of the group’s Saturday sessions.
English kept the students on track to finish building the frame before focusing on programming the robot. She said the programming involved downloading an application from FIRST Global onto her personal laptop. Due to time constraints, English said she was unable to teach the students how to program the robot, so she completed that part herself. She said, however, she is looking forward to working with students on programming the robot ahead of next year’s global challenge.
“I myself had to learn how to program it, so I couldn’t very well teach because I was learning myself,” English said. “But now that I am more confident and see the results, then hopefully next year we’ll get more into the programming aspects of the robot.”
