STX high school students compete in global robotics challenge

A team of St. Croix high school students traveled to Athens to represent the territory in the FIRST Global Challenge, an olympics-style, international robotics competition.

The robotics team, led by Project Promise, was invited to build and program a robot to compete. When the team arrived for the challenge in late September, they worked cooperatively with students from different countries to complete tasks in a game themed around a global challenge. “They are thinking about solving problems not as an individual country, but by bringing the teams together to think about how we face these issues together as a global community,” Project Promise founder Resa O’Reilly Shearn told The Daily News.

Official robotics team members include; Jiya Banani, Nnenaya Bedminster, C’Niyah Smith, Ethan Valery, and Ziva Caleb. Brenda English, the team’s coach, and mentor and additional team members, Pari Banani and Isolde Dias Belle, also traveled to Athens. Project Promise is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of at-risk youth in St. Croix. “We give kids opportunities that they wouldn’t otherwise have,” Shearn said.