GUYANA’S skills in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) were showcased during the International Youth Robotics Competition (IYRC) held virtually in South Korea.

Participation in the virtual competition this year was guaranteed as a result of timely support from the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports and an allocation from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), a release said.

“The goal this year was to ensure a regional diversity of teams,” said STEMGuyana Director, Karen Abrams. The STEM Guyana Organisation was able to prepare four senior teams, comprising persons, ages 13 to 18 years, and 12 junior teams, which included persons ages seven to 12 years, from seven regions of Guyana to compete against more than 1,000 teams representing more than 20 countries.

Ten of the 12 junior teams represented youth from the national Learning Pods programme which is largely funded by a grant from the IDB.
According to STEM Guyana, all 16 teams medalled this year. Each of Guyana’s participating teams earned bronze, while teams from Mongolia, Russia, Thailand, Australia, Malaysia and Indonesia scored gold and teams from Colombia, Mexico, Algeria and India were among those that scored silver.

Although past teams have earned gold and silver medals, this year, teams were given a little more than two weeks to prepare their robots because of the co-ordination of coaches, space and equipment needed to prepare 16 teams from seven regions for international competition, the release noted.

It said that the preparation required team members to research, ideate, settle on a solution, create a draft, then build, test and update robots. The teams were also required to record presentations of their creations which were judged by a panel of international judges.

The Learning Channel generously made a studio available for teams to record their presentations while coaches Stephanie Simon, Joshua Reece and Aisha Peters prepared the teams and STEMGuyana leads Dominic Budhan and Alisha Koulen co-ordinated the Learning pod teams.

For the third year, teams were prepared for global competition by the STEM Guyana organisation, which has a working robotics lab at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall. The current laboratory is sponsored by the Department of Youth and the Office of the Prime Minister, which ensures a secure location and Internet connectivity for the organisation’s work.

The International Youth Robot Competition is an annual youth competition in robotics, programming, and digital technologies, organised by the International Youth Robot Association (IYRA). Previous competitions were held in Korea, Thailand, China and Malaysia.