Africa-Press – Seychelles. Team Seychelles will take part in the FIRST Global Roboco Challenge 2023, a virtual competition, whose second edition runs from January 2 to March 4, 2023.
This was announced by the director general of the division of science technology and innovation, Xavier Estico, who is also Team Seychelles’ manager.
The FIRST Global Roboco Challenge is a PC video game developed by Filament Games in collaboration with FIRST Global, a non-profit organisation, focused on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education for youths around the world.
Team Seychelles consists of six young students from different secondary schools ‒ Denis Hoareau from Belonie, Farah-Rose Jean-Louis from Beau Vallon, Jaeden Ernesta from Anse Royale, Maryam Henrie from Belonie, Elgar Faure from Plaisance and Mathan Morel from La Digue.
In the game, teams build and control robots to conquer tricky challenges inspired by real world robotic applications which are done by playing Roboco on their computers, while their best attempts are captured at each round. The challenge includes three rounds ‒ the qualifiers; which was held last year in December where Team Seychelles obtained third place out of 44 countries; the playoffs and the final.
Mr Estico shared that Team Seychelles’ participation in the First Global Roboco Challenge ‒ first edition in 2021 ‒ has been a very good one as they managed to obtain a gold, silver and bronze medal.
He added that for the 2023 challenge, preparations started on December 12, 2022, and the qualifier results whereby teams scored points according to the number of tasks they completed, had just been shared last Saturday with Team Seychelles finishing behind Algeria and Madagascar.
He added that they are targeting to achieve first place in the playoffs which is the next phase. “All these talented and bright students in the team are from public schools and this in a way counters the stereotype that only private school students participate and strive in such activities,” said Mr Estico.
Denis Hoareau, a member of Team Seychelles for the past two years, said the team members do not have any specific or individual roles, but work as a unit, supplying each other with different ideas and integrate them together.
He said the main reason for this approach is because they do not want to see the team stall, in the event that one member is absent.
Another member of Team Seychelles, Farah-Rose Jean-Louis, shared that her experience in the Challenge so far has been enjoyable, however there were of course some moments where she felt a bit under pressure.
“Even though we did well in the last Challenge, we are still aiming to get an even higher position and this takes a lot of work,” she said.
The team is currently getting ready to play in the playoff with the help of their mentor, Joseph Raj.
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