In an impressive achievement that has put the State on the world map, five young students from Goa, who were representing the country as ‘Team India’ for the ‘FIRST Global Challenge 2023’, an Olympics-style international robotics competition in Singapore, made it to the semi-final of the prestigious championship that had the participation of students from around 190 countries.
The badge of the youngest team didn’t dampen its spirit and secured a rather large haul of awards – three gold and one silver. The awards are as follows, Gold in the Helping Hand Award category, Silver in the Fundraising award category, and the Safety Award as well as the social media award.
If you enjoyed reading this article, you can help support our journalism by adding OHeraldo as a preferred source.
For the uninitiated, the FGC competition takes place in a different country each year and each nation is invited to send a team that will build and program a robot to compete.
This year it was held in Singapore from October 7 to 10. The team selected to represent India at FGC 2023 comprised four boys and one girl. They are Apurva Katkar (Class 10, Kendriya Vidyalaya Bambolim); Atharv Sakhalkar (first-year diploma, Agnel Ashram, Verna); Sai Pranav Gandhi (Class 8, Sharada Mandir School, Miramar); Viraj Marathe (Class 8, Dr K B Hedgewar Vidyamandir, Sakhali) and Venkatesh Dempo (Class 8, Sharada Mandir School, Miramar).
After 10 league matches played by Team India, they won 8 matches and qualified for the semi-finals, where they were ranked as the 8th best team. The team also managed to constantly modify its strategies as well as the robot to win matches.
Team India impressed the jury, visitors, and other VIPs with their outreach activities, presentation skills, and booth decoration
To secure the Helping Hand award, Team India shared resources with other global teams for the past two months. It shared videos on various technical and non-technical topics. They organized a 5-day Computer Aided design workshop for other global teams. Shared various designs and tips. Moreover, the team distributed a specially designed tool kit with essential tools and spares, a first aid kit, scouting sheets, strategy sheets, and handmade flowers by special children of Lokvishwas Pratishthan School, Ponda. The flowers were a major hit as every delegate was seen wearing them.
To secure the Safety Award, the team took all the safety measures while working with the robot, created a special safety manual, etc.
The Social Media award was given as the team presented all the 12 social media challenges launched by the competition. The team also created and shared over 35 videos and posts for all the social media like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc to share the inspirational journey of the team with the community.
For the Fundraising award, the team made tremendous efforts to raise sponsorship by approaching various agencies, State government, corporations, etc. The Govt of Goa via the Department of IT and Department of Education had pledged to support Team India. The team also raised funds via crowdfunding
The five-member team managed to do all of this within two months for which the team member got an exemption from attending the school, so they fully committed to working over 15 hours every day in the specially created Robo Lab to complete so many tasks.
“We are a group of five students who are elated to represent India @ the FIRST Global Challenge in Singapore. Three students studying in class 8 are less than 14 years old which made our team the youngest” said the members of Team India.
“We belong to Team Legogoa, a parents-led community club that has been pursuing robotics for the past six years and has won multiple National and International awards. We were selected after a tough selection process competing against experienced and veteran teams from other parts of the country. We built a contraption that flung a tennis ball 27mts using the concepts of projectile motion,” the team added.
It may be recalled that their selection as Team India led to statewide congratulations from the Chief Minister and the Goa State Assembly and also from the student community across the State.
“Traditionally the bigger states and cities of India have been areas for participation in the fields of robotics. Our team belongs to a small state that lacks STEM awareness and facilities such as robotics labs, coaching centers, and veteran teams. We would like to ensure that our participation would make us the torchbearer for smaller regions in the country to pursue competitive robotics. We have planned our outreach activities to inspire the small-town students,” the team added.
Saieesh Gandhi, was Team India’s Mentor. He’s also the Team LegoGoa mentor and has been active in mentoring teams since 2019 in various robotics competitions.
