– STEM Guyana’s Karen Abrams tells of preparations that contributed to Team’s stellar performance

By Ravena Gildharie
AS praises ring out for the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Guyana team following their impressive performance at the recently concluded Global Robotic Challenge staged in Washington D.C., STEM Guyana stands tall as a camp of motivation made up of a vibrant group of youth who are convinced that they can dream

big, and can realise those goals through hard work and dedication.

With only one year of exposure to robotics, Team Guyana competed against 809 youths who contested from 157 countries in 164 teams and emerged in the 10th position at the end of the event. The competition was held under the theme ‘H2O Flow’ and tested the critical thinking, strategy, and ingenuity of the competitors, who were tasked to construct robots that would help solve the problem of access to clean water.
Team Guyana was led by captain Ryan Benschop and included Anthony Frank, Arianna Mahase, Christopher Nelson, Sahief Poese and Vevekeanand Ramnarace, alongside Team Manager Farnaz Baksh; Coach Ricky Chan; and Public Relations Officer Horace Mosley. The support team was led by Co-Founder of STEM Guyana Karen Abrams, an overseas-based Guyanese.

Benschop, upon his return from the competition, noted that the team “learned many invaluable lessons both about robotics and even life in general, and what it takes to be successful.”

The team received a grand welcome at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Timerhi, on Wednesday evening, July 19 2017, led by First Lady Sandra Granger, who pioneered STEM Guyana along with Abrams.

The young Benschop said the youths “developed skills in useful areas, such as teamwork, problem- solving especially under pressure, time and resource management, and, I think most importantly, determination and the attitude of never giving up.”
He added, “we’ve proven that Guyana can be a very formidable player in robotics, and tech as a whole, and I think our experience will inspire an attitude in many Guyanese and pave the way for much development and progress.”

Distinctive design

Team Guyana competed with a robot, named ‘Megathurium,’ which featured an integrated design of koker doors, combine machines used in the rice fields and other indigenous systems. While building the robot, the youth visited kokers and other structures which inspired the robot’s design.

At the challenge, commentators remarked on the distinctive design of the robot, and although Team Guyana ended Day One in first place, the members were subsequently challenged by underperforming teams and robot, which caused the loss of many points.
Each team was challenged to build a robot that could have gathered/simulated water particles, sort the contaminated from the clean water particles and then find a way to make the robot deposit those particles in specific locations.  The robot also had to be programmed to pull itself up off the ground.  Teams built their robots with no formal instruction, and limited experience using nuts, bolts, motors, sensors and other parts provided by Vex Robotics.

“One weakness was not being able to afford to purchase more than one robot with which to practise. This would have helped us to strengthen our competition field navigation, but we still managed to perform outstandingly well,” said Abrams, during an exclusive interview with Pepperpot Magazine after the competition. Many of the other participating teams practised with additional robot kits.
However, she highlighted that the experience was exhilarating for Team Guyana, as members developed a global network of linkages with friends and possible business contacts.

“Team Guyana members are grateful for the experience and look forward to acting as ambassadors for STEM Guyana, spreading STEM education throughout communities in Guyana,” Abrams expressed.
She added that members “learned that hard work does pay off and that although the world is not fair, if you do your best to prepare, you put yourself in a position to win. They learned that ‘teamwork makes the dream work.’ They learned to love and appreciate each other and to believe in themselves. Most of all they now understand that they have the ability to dream big dreams and work to change the world,” she continued.

Building Team Guyana
Last year, her children observed that Guyana was not represented at robot engineering competitions and Abrams got an idea. She contacted the First Lady, who expressed interest, and the two women reached out to the diaspora. They used the U.S.$10, 000 raised to buy robot kits and thereafter produced four summer camps in Buxton, Lusignan and Georgetown. There, Guyanese youths were exposed to robot-building and programming.

“Later, we were invited to the global tournament and we reached out to some of the folks we had trained the year before and went further by recruiting other youth from the University of Guyana, Georgetown Technical Institute (GT) and some high schools to practise for the team. It was from this group of young people that we chose the members of Team Guyana,” Abrams recalled.

Over the months, the pioneers advocated support to fund and organise the team’s participation. “We had a handful of strong advocates and they helped to make the way for us,” Abrams said, but admitted that the level of cooperation was not impressive.
However, she stressed that Team Guyana’s “accomplishment was a dream realised” and said that she looks forward to support from the diaspora, individuals, private sector and government to expand the programme throughout Guyana. At the Global Challenge, it was observed that Team Guyana’s strength was the willingness to look around the Guyanese community for robot-design ideas.

“Additionally, our team’s diversity; education, age, and geography helped to strengthen our team, since we learned early on to embrace different ideas and perspectives. This strength helped us later in competition when we endured tremendous stress and had to depend on various perspectives and were able to entertain all views and extract the best ideas,” Abrams outlined.

She believes the Guyanese youths are now more confident, empowered and determined to contribute to the solutions that will help to rapidly advance Guyana’s development.
STEM Guyana would soon begin outreaches to schools and communities in Guyana. The members would help to train trainers and new coaches of the new STEM clubs to be created. Three leagues for Mathematics, Robotics and MIT Scratch Programming for youths would also be set up.

Youths behind the success
Vevekeanand teaches Lego Mindstorm to fourth form students at his former Bishop’s High School. He volunteered with STEM Guyana last year and joined the team in May. Anthony is a former Diamond Secondary School student, who took part in the STEM Guyana camp last year, and became interested in robotics, after he realised how much programming influences a robot.

Arianna, who joined the team last April, is a Computer Science student at the University of Guyana (UG) and dreams of becoming a Robotics Engineer. Sahief is also a UG student who joined the team last April.
Christopher is a GTI student pursuing Electrical Engineering, while furthering his interests in the Arts. Ryan graduated from Queen’s College and is studying at School of the Nations with hopes to become a digital entrepreneur.

Farnaz, the manager and Adult Mentor, is a Computer Science student at UG, where she founded the University’s Robotics and TechED Rev Clubs (Technology Education Revolution).
Ricky, who coaches the Team Guyana Robotics group, is Systems Development Officer with the Ministry of the Presidency Department of Citizenship and Immigration Services, General Register Office.
Horace is a young representative from Buxton, who was trained and certified at a Lego Mindstorm coach.