25 أغسطس Mauritania participates in the International Robotics Championship #FIRSTGlobal

Translated from Arabic.

Mauritania participated in the International Robotics Championship organized by FIRST Global, with 190 countries participating. 

The Mauritanian team consists of two young men and a girl who participated through the Mauritanian business incubator HADINA RIMTIC.

Team members are:

• Soumeya Hamady (13 years old) from the school read 
• Amadou N’doye (18 years old) Basrah school 
• Deih Zein (15 years old) Second faith 

Participation 

After the registration and acceptance of the team, the robot kit were sent with installation guidelines and tasks required to be performed, and programming is done only in Java or Blockly.

After creating robots according to the required conditions in a month, they participate in the international championship and compete against the teams of other countries.

The theme selected for each year is different and this year’s theme is about renewable energy, where the robots carry out tasks such as taking energy boxes and feeding residential areas.

Difficulties faced by the Mauritanian team

According to the team leader, the main difficulties encountered from the beginning are the lack of awareness of the robotics field in schools and the lack of volunteer trainers to train and prepare the team to enter matches with teams from developed countries such as the United States, India and others, and not receiving funding from any party to cover the costs of participation. In addition, the schools contacted did not respond to the initial search for team members among the students. 

The team mentor also noted that the students were not familiar with the basics of programming and robotics and even how to participate in extracurricular activities. 

Ranking

With all these difficulties and technical problems faced by the team, the Mauritanian team to achieved the status of 134 out of the 190 teams, performing better than several teams from advanced countries such as the French team, for example, which causes us to be proud and have pride, especially as this is the first time the team has participated.

The achievements of these young people from their first participation in these conditions and the level of programming and knowledge in this field proves the importance of introducing information in general and programming in particular in the system of primary and secondary education in Mauritania, and this can be attributed to the development of the country and the discovery of talent in this important area. 

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