The Blackbots is the name of the national teams that represent FIRST® New Zealand internationally. This year the students that have been selected for the New Zealand Blackbots FIRST® Global Challenge team are: Jimmy August (Ngaitai), Ella White (Te Ātiawa), Ruby Langford, Mary-Jane Richards (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Kahungunu), James Maxwell and Akeen Guruge.

The students have been chosen from various New Zealand FIRST® Tech Challenge teams. They attend Havelock North High School and Karamu High School in the Hawkes Bay, on the East Coast of New Zealand.

August and Maxwell have already had success internationally as members of the FIRST® LEGO League New Zealand Blackbots team that came second at the 2019 FIRST Lego competition in the USA.

Richards was a member of a Hawke’s Bay team that were 2020 National FIRST® LEGO champions and was set to travel to the Houston Worlds, with the New Zealand Blackbots, before pandemic travel restrictions hit.

White, Guruge and Langford have slightly less experience but have competed at a high level before in other sporting codes.

The team is pumped to hang out and meet students from all other countries and to do the best they can do for their country. They come from a land of flightless birds but they are born to fly!

Thank you to our supporters!