Source: THE HINDU-9th October,2019
Five students to represent India at the competition themed around the greatest challenges facing the earth
A five-member all-girls team, in the 14 to 18 age group, from four top
schools of Mumbai, has been selected to represent India in a robotics challenge
competition to be held in Dubai between October 24 and 27.
They will compete with teams from other countries to build robots that
will have the capability to clean pollutants from the ocean.
More than 2,000 students from 193 countries will participate in the 3rd
edition of the FIRST Global Challenge, a U.S.-based not-for-profit organisation
that invites countries to select teams to compete in a Robotics Olympics themed
around the greatest challenges facing the planet earth.
Called “The Geared-up Girls”, the team comprises Aarushi Shah (Bombay
International School) who works on robot design, construction and electricals;
Radhika Sekhsaria (Oberoi International School), responsible for fundraising
and programming; Aayushi Nainan (Dhirubhai Ambani International School) who
looks after strategy and construction; Jasmehar Kochhar (Podar International
School) who is into programming and strategising; and Lavanya Iyer (Dhirubhai Ambani
International School), responsible for robot construction and strategy.
The theme of this year’s competition is ‘ocean opportunities’ and the
focus is to find robotic solutions to deal with ocean pollution that negatively
impacts marine life and global population.
The objective is to educate the participating teams about initiating
action to preserve the oceans and help build robots that can clean up the ocean
of pollutants.
“This is the first time that an all-girls team has qualified to make it
to the FIRST Global Challenge. That’s really encouraging for STEM [Science,
Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics] education because there’s a wide
gender disparity in this field,” said Meenal Majumdar, who is Mentor of the
team.
“It has been part exciting and part fulfilling to mentor the five girls
who have the spunk and intelligence. Apart from preparing the team technically,
we have spent a lot of time in community service, where the girls are actively
spreading awareness about STEM and teaching robotics to underprivileged
children,” she said.
The girls went through a selection process that involved four rounds of
technical interviews. They were pitted against 20 teams vying for the spot to
make it to team India, people familiar with the competition said.
