PM Donates Robotic Kits to Schools in OW

On Monday, Prime Minister John Briceño handed out robotic kits to several high schools during a ceremony in the Orange Walk District. These kits are meant to help students tackle problems they encounter both in school and beyond. Godfrey Sosa, the Information Technology Director at Belize High School, explained that the kits, which resemble small toys, can be programmed to perform various tasks. Dian Maheia, C.E.O. in the Ministry of Education, urged the students to make the most of these kits. News Five’s Marion Ali has the story.

 

Marion Ali, Reporting

On Monday, Prime Minister John Briceño donated robotic kits to four high schools in the Orange Walk District and another to the Banquitas USpace. The kits are for the youths who attend these institutions and who use the USpace. The PM encouraged the youths to advance their creativity by using the kits.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“I felt that this was a good time for us to be able to then to provide kids to all the high schools, and also here at the USpace, that we can give more accessibility to our young people, for them to be able to, to use their creativity, and to be able to see how they could advance even more. By providing these kits, and the schools also encouraging more of our young people to get more involved in technology. I believe that Belize is going to be in great hands in the future.”

 

Robotics was introduced into the high school arena by students at the Belize High School. That institution’s IT Director, Godfrey Sosa explained to the youths how the kit works.

 

Godfrey Sosa, IT Director, Belize High School

“We have our Spike Prime kit. This is our robot. Now, we look at this kit and we may think that it looks like a small toy for a kid. It’s not. There are many sensors in this kit that we have line sensors, we have gyroscopes, we have temperature sensors, so there’s a lot that you can do. So building a robot is only one part of it, your creativity, how artistic you are in terms of the design, but there’s also the additional part because if I don’t program this machine, it will do nothing.”

 

C.E.O. in the Ministry of Education, Dian Castillo-Maheia shared that the whole idea behind the facility now called the USpace was to extend the public learning space for youths and now, that learning potential has been further widened by the donation of the kit to Banquitas USpace.

 

Dian Castillo-Maheia, C.E.O., Ministry of Education

“There was a vision to start the USpace and that vision led us to open this space that’s open for you and the PM in his vision saw a way to extend and expand the reach of youth space. The BHS teachers, thank you for being here, because they’re going to share with us another way in which they have stood up and worked. They’ve taught and they’ve learned how to make robotics real. The kits that are going to be distributed today are going to be for your use, not for you to put on a shelf and then they’re going to collect dust and every now and again somebody wipes them off and says, oh yeah, remember when we got into that place and we may get that thing? Hm mmh. (Shakes hand)”

 

IT Director Sosa encouraged the youths to make the kits work so that they enable them to solve problems they encounter.

 

Godfrey Sosa

“In the future, we’re looking at those same people looking at problems that we have in our own country and see how we can then solve those problems. That is robotics. That is STEM. That is the whole concept of programming. How do we find solutions to our existing problems? And as simple as these look, it’s a start because the theme of this whole competition changes every year and it’s tied into problems in the community, agriculture, water, electricity, all of these things are problems and through a game this have you start to think, oh, this is how this works. How can I then become a part of the solution? How can I create something that can become a part of the solution?”

 

The Belize High School will hold a robotics competition on March fifteenth, for which ten schools have already registered. Marion Ali for News Five.