2024 will be Aruba’s second time competing in the FIRST Global Challenge! Our students this year are Quintin Lochtenberg (14), Ruarth Lampe (15), Guiyan de Nobrega (16), Angeline Lacle (15), and Princess Tucker (16). They were the first place winners of Aruba’s first-ever Youth Robotics Hackathon: Sustainability in Motion, which was a challenge for high schoolers on the topics of robotics and designing sustainable transportation systems for Aruba. This event was organized by The STEM Embassy, a local non-profit organization that organizes STEM-related events for the youth of the ABC islands and coordinates Team Aruba’s participation in the FIRST Global Challenge. This year’s students met each other at the event, but quickly became a closely-working team. Some members are robotics veterans, while other’s had no experience at all before the hackathon.

Aruba is a small island in the Caribbean, situated right off the coast of South America, with a population of about 110,000. It’s an autonomous country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Aruba is known for its white sand beaches and clear blue sea, making it a popular tourist destination. This has made the island heavily dependent on tourism, which accounts for around 90% of the GDP, receiving over a million tourists each year. This creates an intense need for resources such as food on the island, not only for locals, but also for the multitudes of visiting tourists. Due to its arid climate and small area, most of our food is imported from abroad, leading to high and ever-increasing food costs. This makes Aruba a prime candidate in need of local sustainable food production solutions, which our students are ready to tackle!

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Team Media