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This weekend, all are invited to witness a competition with a few key ingredients: 10 robots, approximately 80 students from five Cayman Islands high schools and a team of volunteer mentors that officiate the event. The 2022 Minds Inspired FIRST Tech Challenge takes place at the Arts & Recreation Centre in Camana Bay from noon until 5 p.m. on Saturday, 26 March and will see public and private school teams form alliances in this year’s transportation-themed event, Freight Frenzy.

The team of volunteer engineers and STEM professionals officiating the event includes Namitha Abraham, an electrical engineer and robotics mentor in the programme, who touts the value of students learning robotics for the transferrable skills it provides. “Irrespective of what the task is at hand, the skills you develop from robotics are transferrable,” she said. “Having worked with youth in robotics, it’s their skill sets – not whether they managed to get the gear ratios correct, but did they go through the right process to find the gear ratios? It’s the mental development – robotics is great for that because it pushes multiple areas of your brain at the same time so it gives you a wider development of your skill set.”

Sponsored by Dart’s Minds Inspired programme, Aureum Re, Caribbean Utility Company, Digicel and Health City Cayman Islands, the event will also lead to the selection of the Cayman National Robotics Team to attend the FIRST Global Challenge in Geneva, Switzerland in October 2022.

Dart’s Senior Manager Education Programmes, Glenda McTaggart, who facilitates the event, added: “It’s a family-friendly event for all to attend, whether you are cheering on a student participating or if you have no idea about robotics and want to come to learn more.”

The event is free of charge and all are welcome to attend. For more on the FIRST Tech Challenge, visit mindsinspired.ky.