Team South Sudan Robotic is brainstorming on problems and challenges in their communities and coming up with solutions on how to the solve these problems with the gained knowledge of STEM under the FIRST Global theme Discover & Recover. This year South Sudan is ready to compete with other teams in the world.

A team of South Sudanese high school students mentored by Richard Ring Kuach, took part in the FIRST Global Robotic competition held in Washington DC in 2017, Mexico in 2018, Dubai in 2019. The team won a gold medal for courageous achievement in 2017 Washington DC’s FIRST Global Challenge. That award recognized the challenges the team faced building their robot named RamcielBotic. RamcielBotic was designed and built with the aim and purpose, to clean our dirty environment, generate electricity to save our environment from pollution, clean our ocean, lakes, rivers in order to save aquatic life.

The South Sudan Robotics Team, supported by the FIRST global community, aims to mobilize and encourage South Sudanese youth from the age of 18 years and below to join and participate in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). The study of STEM subjects gears students to innovation and creativity in solving real-world problems. As such, these young robotics engineers applied the skills acquired through STEM to represent the promise of our nation’s young people and their ability to contribute to the development of our country. Technology boosts production and encourages progress in various fields. Currently, most of the population uses generators as the source of energy instead of using hydropower or renewable energy such as solar power, which would help us fight environmental pollution caused by the use of diesel and fuel and plastic bottles. Every year, Team South Sudan Robotics put in more effort which earned them another opportunity to participate and compete in 2018 Mexico and 2019 Dubai FIRST Global.

South Sudan is one of the youngest nations in the world. After her independence, she has been faced with a lot of challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic, flooding, hunger, and wars. Despite the challenges, war, and conflict in the Sudan region, it is a miracle for the people to still have the focus on technology, and better still, to drive such innovative inventions. Due to the covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, the South Sudan Robotic team was affected a lot due to the lockdown.

The world is looking to Africa as the next destination for technological inventions. This is only proper since about 80% of the raw materials used in the technological world are sourced from Africa.

Student:
My name is Akot Magok Lueth. I got interested in science when I was in Primary school, I never gave up though science subjects are hard because of the lack of teachers and practicals in secondary School. I chose to do science because I have a dream to become a great science like KIM the founder of FIRST GLOBAL and Bill Gates. Science has a great impact on our daily life and in our environment.

Mentor:
Mr. Kuach was honored as an outstanding mentor, one who never gave up despite the challenges the team faced in the 2017 competition. “Knowing is not enough,” Mr. Kuach told the competitors; “the knowledge acquired must be applied to solve real-world problems. Being willing is not enough, but we must do to solve the problem.” With a motto like that, no wonder he is an inspiration to students. Neither doing or winning has come easily to Mr. Kuach. He has worked hard to acquire a good education. After completing his primary school at Marial-Lou Comboni Primary School in Tonj North in 2006, In 2007 he attended John Paul II Secondary School in Wau, where he focused on science. At that point, his goal was medical studies, and he was accepted at the University of Bhar El Ghazel Wau in 2011. However, he changed his plans and went to study for a B.Sc. in computer engineering from Cavendish University in2015. In 2017 he went for further studies to pursue an M.S. in Engineering specializing in Electronic Information and Communication Engineering atHuazhong University of Science and Technology. Mr. Kuach has become an expert in the research necessary for future wireless networking based on edge cloud computing and in a automatous robotics. Challenge. Mr. Kuach is currently a lecturer at the University of Juba, school of Computer Science and & IT, and he is also a mentor of FIRST Global Team South Sudan at STEM Centre afflicted to the University of Juba. He started volunteering with the FIRST Global organization in 2017.