KES was recently invited to participate in an international competition called FIRST Global Challenge, a yearly robotics event hosted by FIRST where over 180 countries competed to win a prize pool of 150,000 Euros (50,000 KD)!
At KES, students from Years 10 to 13 were brought forth to tackle the challenge within a limited time of 3 days. They were tasked to use a predetermined kit to create a robot with mobility while also intaking and dispersing balls for the contestant to gain points. The competition was hosted in Geneva, Switzerland and took place from October 13th to 16th. The students who represented their countries were provided with services from the Marriot Bonvey hotel.
This year, team Kuwait’s representatives consisted of Jack Marchant, Alpha Amadou Jallow, Adrian Dzido, Fayzan Arif, and Issa Haddad. Many other students from the robotics team also cooperated and sacrificed a lot of their time to complete the robot in time for the competition. The mentors, Mr. Islam and Mr. Özdemir substantially supported them during the building process as well. As Mr. Islam always said, “If there’s a problem, you can always engineer a solution,” which boosted the morale of the participants during stressful times.
KES decided to opt into joining the competition as they saw an opportunity to develop the member’s leadership, communication, and cooperation skills while also exposing them to a new area in engineering. Every student involved got an excellent experience while also achieving an amazing ranking of 6th in the world!
Well done to the whole team!
Story by: Alpha Jallow, 10A2