Team Samoa 2019 🇼🇸

Alexandria Matalavea
Alexandria Matalavea is a Year 12 science student attending Robert Louis Stevenson Secondary School in Samoa. She had become interested in robotics science when she opted to pursue science as an area that her interests and passion are. She wants to learn more about STEM as she grows older and be able to pursue her dreams of becoming the most achieved person in the future.

Aukusitino (Tino) Potoi
Tino is interested in medicine and how AI could assist with the challenges faced in today’s world regarding the role of health care and unresolved solutions to ever increasing potential for epidemics and pandemics. The tournament with the 2019 FIRST Global Challenge to build a robot as a solution to mitigate a simulated problem currently a serious issue in real life aligns with his thinking that development and inventions should focus on solutions rather than be the cause of the problems. Additionally, any event that promotes global citizenry rather than citizens within borders can only do wonders to how we value and view our world.

Julius Netzler (Vice Captain)
Julius is a Year 12 student at Robert Louis Stevenson School in Upolu, Samoa. Julius has always had an interest in robotics. He was first introduced to programming and constructing at a young age. Julius believes it can make a person’s life easier. A plan he has for the near future is to become an environmentalist, where he could introduce robotics to help cure/overcome a problem which is and has been for many years destroying our beloved Pacific Ocean, and that is Climate Change. He believes in creating robots that procure data in natural habitats as such information will help reveal the effect of global warming and allow scientists to advise policy makers.  He has had limited experience in creating robots in the past and is looking forward to this opportunity to learn from others.

Victoria Amosa
Victoria Amosa is a Year 12 Science Student at Robert Louis Stevenson Secondary school located in the islands of Samoa. She became interested in robotics after learning about the involvement and the role of robotics in many surgical and medical procedures, as she aspires to be a surgeon in the near future. Victoria also wishes to partake in solving the many challenges that the world faces today through her participation in the FIRST Global Challenge robotics competition this year.

Marion Fruean (Captain)
She is a science student and is a young woman living in the isolated islands of the Independent State of Samoa, facing the realities of climate change and its impact on its people and the environment. She aspires to continue in her path of environmental science projects to try and replicate best practices and ideas done in other parts of the world in Samoa, to minimize impacts of human activities to the environment, and also to develop and innovate actions that will minimize or reverse the impact of climate change for the betterment of humanity.

She foresees the role of robotics in these activities as the development of automated monitoring systems that will assist in one way or the other in achieving these goals. Her participation in this event in Dubai will enable her to see a side of robotics that she does not have access to in the islands. She hopes that any knowledge gained from the 2019 FIRST Global Challenge can be adapted to assist in current and future projects in any means possible.

Jamesa Potoi (Non Travelling Team Member)
Jamesa shows great interest in Biomechanical Engineering and his particular interest in being part of Team Samoa, even as a non-travelling member, revolves around his love to work in teams and with similarly interested people, to build towards a common goal. He believes that having people work together towards a common objective helps build compassion and understanding, something that he fears is lacking and rapidly disappearing in today’s world, through how we interact with each other as global citizens. Coming from a small island country of only 180,000 in the middle of the Pacific, and therefore vulnerable to the impacts of the larger neighbouring countries, Jamesa believes that many of these issues can be resolved with the help of developments in the interaction of mechanics and biology to create new solutions to ongoing problems that the world faces today.

Margaret Masa Faasau, Team Manager
Deputy Principal – Robert Louis Stevenson’s School (RLSS). Margaret is also a Science and Biology teacher for RLSS and she is one of the top Biology teacher in the country with more than 30 years of teaching experience.

Le Mamea Sia Matalavea, IT Manager/ Mentor
One of the two Team Samoa mentors. Currently working for the University of the South Pacific (USP) as IT Manager for Alafua Campus in Samoa. He is also a Cisco Instructor for the USP Cisco Academy.

Teleiai James Potoi, Mentor
One of the two Team Samoa mentors with back ground in Operations and Marketing.



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