On Monday afternoon at Elmore Stoutt High School, three students and two teachers watched closely as a three-foot-tall robot named Odin manoeuvred a blue rubber ball across the electronics room.
Then Elyon Jones, who was controlling the machine with a wireless device, leaned down and pointed at one of its joints.
“Look at this right here,” he said. “The screws are getting loose. It’s not supposed to move like that.”
Andre Roberts, an information technology teacher who helps coach the school’s robotics team, nodded.
“Yeah, it’s not tight all the way. That needs tightening,” Mr. Roberts said. “Come on, let’s get that done.”
Mr. Jones sprinted toward the nearby tool room.
Time was of the essence. The students were fine-tuning Odin, which they had built and programmed over the previous two weeks, ahead of an international robotics competition next week in Athens, Greece.
At the Sept. 26-29 FIRST Global Challenge, their creation will compete against robots built by teams from about 190 other countries. In keeping with this year’s theme, “Feeding the Future,” the contest will focus on tasks designed to simulate sustainable global systems. The robots, for instance, will have to sort rubber balls representing resources like food, water and energy and then place them into goals to score points.
But it’s not just about speed, according to Mr. Jones.
“It needs to move smoothly but fast, place the ball accurately, and score as many points as possible,” he said.
Odin, he added, is up to the task.
“It’s designed to pick up a basketball-sized ball, place it over a height limit, and then return it to us,” Mr. Jones said.
A diverse team
Like other competitors around the world, the Virgin Islands students built their robot, which is named after the Norse god who fathered Thor, from a standard kit of parts provided by the organisers.
The team members come from a wide range of grades and backgrounds.
Mr. Jones, a general science major at H. Lavity Stoutt Community College, is the team’s leader and its only college student.
“Other than placing high or winning, I’m excited to see the designs of other teams,” he said. “I’m also eager to see how teams from around the world interact.”
For Mr. Jones and two of his teammates — ESHS students Jayron Gibson and Amani Brown — this year’s contest is not their first.
All three took part in last year’s competition in Singapore.
“We learned a lot about coding and overcoming obstacles,” Mr. Gibson said of their experience there.
This year, they’ve built on the structure of their original robot but made key improvements, particularly in the arm designed for handling larger balls.
“We’ve modified it to carry two balls at once — one in the arm and another in the drivetrain — using servos,” Mr. Jones explained. “Servos are motors that can be programmed to move within a certain range. This allows us to score more efficiently, carrying two balls at once.”
‘A strong code’
Eleventh grader Judiah Case, one of the programmers on the team, didn’t hesitate when asked about her strategy for success in Athens.
“I’ll try to make a strong code so that the robot will work efficiently,” she said.
Among the youngest team members is Michaela Jack, an eighth grader who discovered robotics through a summer camp. Despite the tight deadline, she said she didn’t find the project stressful.
“It’s very calming to me,” she said. “It just relaxes you. It cools me down after a hard day.”
Kh’Mouri Anthony, an 11th grader with a passion for engineering, said he is fascinated by the electronics aspects of the project. “You’re able to actually improve the way you see stuff and how to deal with something with a robot,” he said.
Students at Elmore Stoutt High School fine-tune Odin, the robot they built ahead of a global competition next week in Athens, Greece. (Photo: TREMIS SKEETE)
The coaches
Accompanying the students to Greece will be their coaches, Mr. Roberts and Careen Cuffy-Jules, another information technology teacher at ESHS.
“I’m just overwhelmed with excitement in looking at these students who decided to take up the challenge,” Ms. Cuffy-Jules said. “It shows growth within the country. It’s showing me where my future is going to be, and I’m feeling very secure. It’s showing that we’re going to be able to compete with the outside world.”
For some of the team members, she noted, the journey to Athens started with the Robo Mindset Summer Camp hosted by the Ministry of Education, Youth Affairs and Sports. At the camp, students undertook a series of challenges designed to test their problem-solving skills and technical abilities.
“These young ones were identified at the camp,” Ms. Cuffy-Jules told the Beacon. “It wasn’t just random. They had to succeed at a number of challenges. They earned this opportunity.”
Lessons from Singapore
Mr. Brown, a 12th grader, said his path to this competition started when he was in the 10th grade and was part of a team that won the 2023 National Science Fair. That victory earned him a spot at the competition in Singapore the same year.
In Athens, Mr. Brown said, he is excited to explore sites like the Acropolis and to learn more about the Greek gods. But his top priority is the competition.
“I was chosen again because I’m more of a senior person, so I’ll guide the team,” he added.
Mr. Brown said he learned last year in Singapore that the contest is not just about individual skill, but about working seamlessly with other teams from around the world.
“Last year, we had to pair with random countries as alliances,” he said. “My strategy would be to find out all my alliances beforehand so we can come up with a winning strategy with them.”
More time
Mr. Roberts said this year’s team had more time to prepare.
“Last year, it was a very last-minute thing,” he recalled. “We only got the kit to build the robot two weeks before the competition, and this was our first time. So we did a pretty rushed job to get something built and go down there.”
Mr. Gibson, a 12th grader, agreed.
“We were rushed last year, but we learned a lot,” Mr. Gibson told the Beacon. “We didn’t win, but the experience was invaluable. Now we know what to expect.”
Mr. Gibson won’t be able to join the team in Athens, but he’s set to play a critical role by offering guidance from the VI.
“I’ll help them improve on things that are not going so well, and we try to make as much go wrong now so we can improve and make it better later,” he said. “Because if everything goes wrong now and you improve it, it has less chance of going wrong later.”
The Athens competition is hosted by FIRST Global, a United States-based non-profit organisation with a mission to inspire leadership and innovation in youths across the world.
Beyond the contest
As the students worked to complete their robot in recent days, they have also been collaborating with Marcel Davis, the mechanical engineering teacher at the high school.
Along with Mr. Roberts, Mr. Davis helped guide the students through decisions such as the materials used for the robot.
“Aluminium is great because it’s a lightweight material,” he said. “It makes for a robot that’s both tough and agile.”
As the students worked on Monday, Mr. Davis encouraged them to think beyond the competition, noting that the organisers will be considering how robotics can be applied to practical scenarios.
“Now you’re going to participate in a competition: After designing it for this competition, what other things could we use this robot for in the BVI?” he asked.
Mr. Gibson suggested, “We could use it to move basketballs.”
Mr. Davis acknowledged the idea and urged the team to keep thinking along those lines as they move forward in engineering, always considering how their designs can be adapted for larger-scale applications.
“If you had to design another robot,” he asked, “What would you like it to do?”
