Woodford International School to represent Solomon Islands at 2024 First Global Challenge in Greece

Woodford International School will once again represent Solomon Islands at the 2024 First Global Challenge set to be hosted in Athens, Greece from the 26th to 29th September.

The First Global Challenge is an Olympic style international robotics competition that brings together over 190 countries to compete by building and programming a robot.

The theme for this year’s challenge is ” Feeding the future”, which challenges participants  to learn about and address the obstacles and opportunities to provide the global population with equitable, safe, nutritious, and environmentally responsible food.

Speaking to SIBC News, Woodford International Head of School, Daniel Corrigan said preparations are going well for the team.

“We are fortunate again this year to represent Solomon Islands. We have a robotics program within our high school which all the participating students are in so we have already been able to work with the kits that will be utilized for the competition, and they have also received the actual kit from First Global about a week ago.”

“I think they are excited and nervous at the same time but we’ve reminded them that we are proud of them regardless and we want them to have fun and enjoy the experience. I think they are putting a lot of pressure on themselves also representing the country and wanting to place at a decent spot this year,” he said.

Students who are part of the team for this year’s challenge are Langying Zhu, Chris Jnr Tony, Leander Roosen and Lizelle Tupitu.

Ms. Zhu joined the Woodford team to the First Global Challenge in Singapore last year. With her participation in this year’s competition, Zhu told SIBC News that she hopes to improve her team’s performance.

“I feel like we’ve done better than last year in terms of preparation. We have gone through the manuals and how the game is supposed to work like the instructions and rules which we didn’t have much time for last year.”

“And this time with the new team we have new ideas to create a better robot and get a better ranking than last year,” she said.

Meanwhile, another participant Leander Roosen said he looks forward for the competition.

“ It’s going to be a great experience I’m glad that so many people across the world can explore and get involved in this new take on sports.”

“Last year we were in the top 100 so I believe we have a chance at getting a better score so it would be nice to bring home a better ranking.”

SIBC News understands, Woodford International School has represented the country in previous First Global Challenges held in Washington, Mexico, Dubai and Singapore.

ENDS//