Dominica secures 4th rank in Robotics Olympics

Kodie Jean- Jacques, the lead mentor of Dominica’s Robotics team, received the Outstanding Mentor Award along with nine other mentors from all over the world in the first global “Robotics Olympics” challenge which was held in Singapore.

An annual Olympic-style robotic competition is the first challenge to be faced by them. In this competition, pre-university students are assigned to make competitive-style robots.

At this event, Dominica Grammar School and Dominica State College students represented Dominica to compete with the robotic teams belonging to 190 nations.

Out of the hundreds of mentors and coaches, he was the most fortunate one who got selected. Kodie Jean-Jacques won this award for his dedicated work with the 2023 robotics team and his previous work also proved to come handy.

Jean Jacques expressed gratitude for winning this award and to be a part of the Dominica robotics team since 2018.

The Dominica robotics team participated in a competition and presented a robot named “Fiona”. Fiona possesses all the attributes of performing various activities such as climbing, driving, collecting objects from the playing field, and even distributing the objects collected. 

The robot’s making was designed, evaluated and tested by the members of the travelling delegation and the other members of the robotics team. The other members include those who attend St Marlin Secondary, Goodwill Secondary School and Convent High School.

Dominica secured 4th position in OECS and got 64 percentiles out of all the countries that participated in the competition. This competition was a true testament to their technical knowledge. 

One of the team members, Phoenix Jacques, stated that the team’s performance was outstanding despite not getting the desired result. He also added that in the mid-event, they faced a hindrance in their robot in the form of a mechanical fault. But, their knowledge and commitment were tested at that time as they managed to repair that fault in a few hours and succeeded in coming out of that circumstance.

Another team member, Robert Guiste Jr., remarked that the team had left a long-lasting impression on the judges as well as the fellow participants. Their problem-solving techniques and capabilities have ranked them better than the previous year. This competition has boosted their morale for the future tournaments with a motive of reaching new heights.

The team members also thanked their sponsors and partners for making their journey easy and possible.