An All-girls team from The Archbishop Porter High School, will represent Ghana in an annual World Robotics Competition holding in the US this week…
It has been an ever forward journey for Ghana in recent times, as long as scientific and technological innovations are concerned. The ambition to rank in the ongoing modern global innovations is not only burning in the country’s tertiary educational institutions, but also in second cycle schools.
This week, an All-girls team from The Archbishop Porter High School, will be representing Ghana in an annual World Robotics Competition – The FIRST Global Challenge, in the United States.
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The competition is a yearly international Olympics-style robotics event that ignites a passion for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) among the ovr two billion youths across the world.
The event which is organised by FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Global invites one team from every nation to participate in the international competition, aimed bridging the gap between high school students with different backgrounds, languages, religions, and customs.
This year’s challenge is to develop a robot that will help to alleviate the problem of access to clean water around the world. The event will hold from the 16th to 18th of July, 2017, at The Constitution Hall, Washington D. C, USA.
The Archbishop Porter team comprising six girls, has therefore built a robot with which they will compete with other students from over 150 countries across the globe who will participate in the 2017 FIRST Global Challenge.
The Ghana team will be led by Linda Ansong, the executive director of STEMbees, an organisation that is committed to coaching young girls in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
According to Linda Ansong who spoke to Pulse.com.gh, the Porter Girls’ robot is efficient enough to face the stiff competition ahead of them. She said the girls have been doing robotics, but will be facing their first global competition this time.
This appears to be the second time Ghana is participating in a global robotics competition. It is hoped that the involvement of only girls in this year’s competition will inspire more females to venture into the fields of science and technology which have hitherto been male-dominated.
Recall that Prempeh College became the first school in Ghana and Africa to win a global robotics challenge in 2016. They had beaten students from western technology giants such as China, Japan, Canada, USA, India, etc., to grab the prestigious trophy.
It is hoped that Ghana will once again make a mark in the prestigious world challenge.
The World Robotics Competition is an annual global challenge where high school students exhibit robots which they built to perform specific tasks in solving global issues. The competitions are aimed at giving students from around the world the opportunity to showcase their talents in scientific and technological innovations.
The competitions inspire and encourage Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education and skills needed by young people to overcome the greatest challenges facing our world now and in future.
Organisers of these competitions believe one must not be a scientist or an engineer before he or she will be able to initiate innovations that will make meaningful contributions in solving the world’s problems. For them, it’s just a matter of critical thinking!
The competitions come in varying categories and at different times of the year, depending on the organisers and those to participate in the challenge. Some of the major ones include, the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC), and the VEX Robotics Competition (VRC).
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