LAGOS (Sundiata Scholar) – Lagos City Senior College and New Era Junior Secondary School, have won the Senior and Junior categories of 2024 World Robot Olympiad (WRO), Nigeria National competition respectively.
Also, Lagos State Senior Secondary School won the Future Innovators for seniors while Abbas’ Heart Montessori won in the Junior category of the robotic science competition.
Those who won in the Senior and Junior categories, in addition to trophies and other prizes, will represent Nigeria at the World Robot Olympiad (WRO) holding in Izmir, Turkiye in November.The winners defeated 25 other schools at the preliminary and the finals held at Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island.
A breakdown of winners shows that Lagos City Senior College won the Senior category with 59 points, Epe Senior High School, Epe, came second with 54 points and Ojo Senior High School came third with 51 points.Similarly, New Era Junior Secondary School won the junior category after amassing 91 points, Eva Adelaja Junior High School came second with 72 points, while Team Legend came third with 46 pointsSpeaking on gains of the WRO, the convener and the Chief Executive Officer, Arc-Light Foundation, Mrs Abisola Obasanya, said that the programme had produced many students who also won scholarships into various schools overseas.”We started the programme in 2011 and today, we have recorded several success stories.”The students have been responsive and learning fast, especially the
underprivileged children that wouldn’t have had the opportunity to have their paths crossed by robotic science.”Most of those students that passed through this programme had graduated from local to international levels while some are working with multinationals.”It brings immense joy that the students are now on international levels, someone like Gamemal Ezekiel, who went to Hungary, got a scholarship to study in Russia,”she said.
Obasanya also said that the coaches trained under the programme were also doing well in other climes.”The public schools have been the major target because government that controls them are the policy makers.”Howbeit, we are also in touch with most of the private schools in Lagos State and will also like to expand the initiative to other states of the federation.”We want more states and schools, both private and public, to join in the robotic science revolution in Nigeria,”she said.Participants in the competitions, who also spoke with the reports in Lagos, expressed delight in robotic science.
Three students from Methodist Girls High School, Yaba, Moyinoluwa Subair, Emmanuela Bolaji and Alice Fagbenhingbe also shared their respective experiences.
For Fagbenhingbe, she would love to be an hardware supplier of robots in future while Bolaji said learning robotic science was out of curiosity which later developed into a passion for her.”I can say that I was curious about robots so I started developing interest and now I want to be an engineer,” she said.
Also, Subair said that though she was introduced into the robotic science at the Junior school she had since developed interest.
Another student, Victoria Orebanwo, a 10-year-old pupil of Abbas’ Heart Montessori School, Ibeju Lekki, and winner of the Elementary 8-12, said that building robots had been a passion for her since she started learning it. Public and Private Schools in Lagos State participated in the WRO Nigeria National competition facilitated by the Arc-Light Foundation.
The WRO competition is an annual event packaged by Arc-Light Foundation, an NGO, in conjunction with the Lagos State Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education.
According to Obasanya, it aims to expose students in Public and Private Primary and Secondary Schools to early learning of robotic science.
The presentation of awards was done by the Lagos Commissioner of Youth and Social Development, Mr Bolaji Ogunlende, at the occasion.
Other dignitaries included Dr Ayoola Olusola, Special Adviser on Education to Gov. Dapo Abiodun of Ogun. (NAN)