Jamaica’s nine-member team at the Robotics Olympics in Athens, Greece, secured a bronze medal in the competition, which concluded on Sunday. The team, returning to the island today, was awarded the Dr. Mae Jemison Bronze for International Unity. This honor is given to the team that exemplifies the best qualities of FIRST Global by breaking down barriers, demonstrating gracious professionalism, and fostering connections with fellow teams.
In addition to the bronze medal, the Jamaican team won the Social Media Challenge Award, recognizing teams that actively participated in a majority of online social media challenges throughout the season. They also received an award for the best storytelling video, which adhered to the guidelines for creating an impactful team profile.
Overall, Jamaica finished 58th out of 190 countries participating in the Robotics Olympics. The delegation consists of five students, two coaches, one additional student, and one additional coach. The schools represented in the 2024 team included the American International School of Kingston (AISK), Campion College, Hillel Academy, Immaculate Conception High School, Kingston College (KC), and Wolmer’s High School for Boys.
The students who represented Jamaica at the Robotics Olympics included Alwyn Brown from Kingston College (KC), Ojani Chung from Campion College, Emily Zhu from Hillel Academy, Abbigail Cato from Immaculate Conception High School, Sean-Michael Williams from the American International School of Kingston (AISK), and Jordon Williams from Wolmer’s High School for Boys, who served as the support student.
Team Jamaica Robotics has been guided for years by Head Coach Gavin Samuels, a Jamaica College alumnus, though he was unable to attend this year. Long-time coach Paul Pounall also contributed to the team’s preparation but had to stay behind to address family matters.
FIRST Global assisted the core team by covering airfares and hotel expenses for the five main students and two coaches. Last year, the 10-member Jamaican Robotics team was honored with the Katherine Johnson Award for engineering documentation, named after the renowned African-American mathematician who significantly contributed to aeronautics and played a key role in ensuring the safe return of astronauts John Glenn and Alan Shepard from space.
