Accra, Ghana, June 12, 2019//-World Bank has supported winners of the senior division of the World Robofest Championship with laptops to encourage the all-nine female champions to do more for Ghana and Africa.
The outgoing World Bank Country Director for Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, Henry Kerali presented the laptops to the female students of the Mamfi Girls’ Senior High School in the Eastern Region who recently won the competition in the United States (U.S), when they paid courtesy call on him at the World Bank Ghana office in Accra.
In a short message, he said: “You have proven that the African can do when given the equal playing field. We are so proud to associate ourselves with you”.
Mr Kerali assured that the bank would continue to support the country’s education sector to help build the human capital of the West African country.
On her part, Mrs. Catherine Appiah-Pinkrah, Director for Pre-tertiary Education at the Ministry of Education thanked the bank for the done the students and the country large.
She disclosed that the government was working around the clock to include the teaching of robotics and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) in the country’s education curriculum.
“We will also set up STEM and robotics centres across the country” to speed up the teaching of these disciplines in the country, Mrs Appiah-Pinkrah stated.
Background
The country was represented at the World Robofest Championship by all-girls robotics team from the Mamfi Girls’ Senior High School in the U.S.
They won the topmost position by beating teams from the U.S, Mexico, Egypt, South Korea and dozens of others.
The nine-member girl team named as Team Acrobot dominated the 10 broad and challenging categories of the championship held from May 16 to 18 at the Lawrence Technological University (LTU), Southfield, Michigan in the U.S.
The categories include the Game (Complete robotic missions), Exhibition (Show off projects), Vision Centric Challenge (Develop robots to solve problems using cameras), Unknown Mission Challenge (Surprise missions), and RoboArts (Robotics music, dance and arts competition),
The team 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 Acrobot qualified from the national championship level called the Robotics Inspired Science Education (RISE) competition organised by the Ghana Robotics Academy Foundation in January, 2019. They beat several teams before qualifying for the World Robofest Championship.
Since 1999, Robofest has been organised to offer students the opportunity to master principles of STEM as well as Computer Science (CS), communication, critical thinking, teamwork, and problem solving skills while designing, constructing, and programming robots.
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