SBEC Robotic Team Pulls 2nd In World Championship

Photo: Abdoukarim and the Team 

By Ousman A. Marong

Gambia’s SBEC International School team of 3 boys won the second position in the World Robofest Championship in the United States (US), defeating the United States, Mexico, Egypt, South Korea and dozens of others.

The “Acrobat” team of three boys and one teacher from SBEC International School in the Northern Region of The Gambia dominated the 10 broad and challenging categories of the championship held from February 15 to 24 at Texas Technological University (TTU).

The categories include Complete Robotic Missions, Exhibition (Show off projects), Vision Centric Challenge (Develop robots to solve problems using cameras), Unknown Mission Challenge (Surprise missions), Robot Arts (Robotics music, dance, and arts competition), BottleSumo (Pushing bottle or opponents of a table), RoboParade (Parade of robots), Camps, Carnival and WISER, a conference on STEM education through robotics.

The team from The Gambia was able to build a robot that arranged boxes according to a binary number they were given during the competition. They also completed their missions successfully.

Team Acrobat was the only team from The Gambia and participated in the world robofest Championship in the US for the first time.

The West African country’s team of 3 boys including one teacher SBEC International School in the Gambia came 2nd out of the overall 52 teams in the division. The teams qualified from the national championship level called “the Robotics Inspired Science Education (RISE) competition” organized by MRC Robotics Academy Foundation. They beat several teams before qualifying for the World Robofest Championship.

Robofest has been organized since 1999 to offer students the opportunity to master principles of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) as well as Computer Science (CS), communication, critical thinking, teamwork, and problem solving skills while designing, constructing, and programming robots.

Since Robofest started, over 25,000 students have competed from 14 U.S. States, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, England, France, Ghana, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Lebanon, Macau, Mexico, Singapore, South Africa, and South Korea. The teams compete in the junior, senior and college divisions.

All registered participants received medals and personalized certificates from the Robotics Academy Foundation.

Speaking to reporters at the International airport on yesterday, Coach Hassan Sillah, thanked SBEC International School and parents who entrusted him to travel with their children to the US.

“It wasn’t easy when we went to Texas to complete in the robotic competition. We were the only team that didn’t even have an idea of what the competition was all about;” he explained.

He revealed that upon arrival his team members were bit nervous but he (Hassan Sillah) had the trust and confidence in them that they can do it.

Photo: Team SABEC received by the principal at The Airport 

Abdoukarim Demba, a student and a participant complaint about the short time given to them to complete building their robots.

Mr. Mamadou Colley, Principal of SBEC International School described the team’s victory as a victory to the entire nation.

He encouraged the kids to engage themselves in science-related subjects.