Team Sri Lanka 2018

In 2017, all members of Team Sri Lanka were selected from Elizabeth Moir School. Having had an absolutely amazing experience, the school was keen to promote STEM and FIRST Global across the island and the call was answered by St John’s College Jaffna in the North, and Presidents College, Embilipitiya in the South. 

Thus, the team is made of students from three different regions of the island, brought together by their fascination with robotics and coding.  This is particularly important and symbolic as the country rebuilds and reconciles after a long civil war that ended in 2009. 

Members, and sometimes founders of their respective school’s coding and robotics clubs, the team has taken over an entire classroom within the Elizabeth Moir School premises; sometimes they are the only living beings on the campus but for the observant giant monitor lizard they have named Flaming Thalagoya*. 

Team Sri Lanka Members

Cong (17) – Chess player, Rubik’s cube phantom and coding specialist, Cong believes that nothing can be done without a knowledge of mathematics unless you’re the most powerful person in the world. 

Daniel (17) –A Sri Lankan Korean, Daniel wants to use his love of mathematics to build a robot that can do absolutely everything he can’t so he won’t need to code it to play football for the school team or to sing in the church choir.

Felix (17) – born in California, Felix moved to Asia at age 6. He is fascinated with Python programming and advanced problem-solving using programming. A keen parliamentary debater who loves to read books on history and economics as well as an actor of no mean repute, a career in government may well be on his horizon if there are any openings in 2020.

Lasith (17) – From President`s College, Embilipitiya, Lasith is a keen member of his school robotics team, has built his own robot and taken part in several robotics competitions. His ambition is to be an engineer.  He loves cricket, but thinks it may be more challenging explaining the sport to an Mexican audience than it would be to teach anyone how to code. 

Navod (15) – The youngest member of the team, Navod is from Presidents’ CollegeEmbilipitiya. He started experimenting with the lights on his bicycle when he was a child and his interest in engineering and robotics has continued since. He also holds a black belt in Karate. 

Sachin (17) – Our resident coding expert, Sachin is a former national swimmer who looks forward to immortality (although that idea scares everyone he knows). His greatest rewards are the Percy Jackson or ArtherC.Clarke books he gets every time he obtains good results. His library is rather large. 

Sherwin (17) –  Hailing from St.John’s college, Jaffna. Sherwin has a wide range of interests from technology and science to music and sport. An award winning inventor, his ambition is to become a Mechatronics engineer. This eager self-starter can’t wait to get to Mexico to show the world what Sri Lanka is all about. 

Syanthan (17) –  Born in London, raised in Dubai but a Sri Lankan at heart, he has always had a keen interest in STEM and aims to become a mechanical engineer in the automobile/aerospace industry.  

Felix, Daniel, Cong, Syanthan and Sherwin will all be travelling to Mexico as part of Team Sri Lanka

Teachers in charge 

Dilum-  Photographer, film-maker and go-kart racer, Dilum is also a hardcore programmer and an expert in creating and flying remote control aircrafts and doing Arduino based robotics. He is key to the team’s technical and strategic decision making. 

Jekhan – After 20+ years in the software industry, then 5 years teaching high school mathematic in England, he is now settled in Jaffna as an entrepreneur. His varied experiences made him an optimistic pessimist, which helps the team try to foresee and dodge trouble.

Shankar – A young, energetic, engineering postgraduate who runs Elizabeth Moir School’s Robotics Club, Shankar’s expertise on CAD helps the team design, build and fine tune the robot. Fondly known as ‘Shanks’, he is often mistaken for one of his students.  

Srimali – Our Team Manager and the epitome of efficiency and grace under pressure, Srimali is Moir’sModel United Nations Faculty Advisor. She likes learning about anything related to STEM, enjoys programming and Mechanics, and even built the school’s Quiz Buzzer.  

Shankar and Jekhan will be part of the team travelling to Mexico. 

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*Thalagoya-  Found across the country, this Land Monitor’s flesh is considered a delicacy among the indigenous Vedda people. 

Team Media

 

Sponsors

An anonymous donor who was a past student of Mrs Moir.



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