M'sian High School Students Earn A Spot At Swiss Robotics Olympics In Geneva
The team will be competing against students from over 180 countries.
By May Vin Ang — 14 Sep 2022, 10:34 AM
Four girls and a boy from Terengganu and Johor will be representing Malaysia at an international robotics competition in Geneva, Switzerland in October this year
The For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) Global Challenge is an annual Olympics-style robotics competition that gathers teams of youths aged between 15 and 17 worldwide to build and program robots to complete tasks that may tackle the world's biggest environmental challenges.
This year's FIRST Global Challenge is themed 'Carbon Capture', a concept that will bring attention to the negative effects of climate change to the planet.
In a statement on Tuesday, 13 September, as the official partner of the competition, Kuala Lumpur-based robotics learning centre Roboticist selected students based on their overall performance in local robotics competitions.
The team will be competing against students from over 180 countries.
FIRST Global Malaysia program director Ilylia Kamaruzaman expressed confidence in the Malaysian team selected this year
Team Malaysia consists of five high school students:
- Nur Alia Sofiah Zainordin, 16
- Lidya Marlynda Mahd Shah, 15
- Muhammad Ammar Akhmal Abd Wa'fa, 15
- Khayra Zokree, 15
- Nor Khairiah Omar, 15
Ilylia said each student has their own role in the team and a set of specialised skills, including robot programming using JavaScript, mechanical understanding, as well as robot building and design.
The national team would be mentored by coaches Ridhuan Azman and Nur Nadirah Mohd Roslan during the competition that will be held from 13 October to 16 October.
The founder of Roboticist added it was encouraging to see more girl representatives in the robotics community
"The platform that we are creating is hoped to produce not only skilled youth, but, most importantly, [youth who are] all set for the workforce," Ilylia said, believing in the foundation of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) skills in the next generation.
"The increased number of female representatives in Team Malaysia this year will encourage more female students to participate in robotics, which is otherwise still dominated by male students," she added.
"We believe that they will make Malaysia proud."
