Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1483500
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 6 NOVEMBER 2022 16 COMMERCIAL MCAST ICT students compete in international robotics competition A team of five students from MCAST, from the Institute of Information and Commu- nication Technology (ICT) were selected to compete in an international robotics competition. This was held in Geneva, Switzerland between 13th October 2022 and 16th October 2022. First Global, the main or- ganisers for this event invited 162 countries to participate in this competition. The aim of First Global is to encour- age STEM education through the use of robotics; to moti- vate students from developed, poor and war-torn countries to participate and meet with other students from across the globe, and to raise aware- ness on current environmen- tal issues. Participating countries re- ceived a robot kit composed of different parts together with a game manual. The team received the robot kit in July and built the robot dur- ing their summer recess. In Geneva, during the com- petition, the countries were randomly categorised for the matches as alliance in a team of three and compete against three others. The Malta Team ranked in the 81st place out of the 162 competing countries. The theme for this year's competition was Carbon Cap- ture. The robot needed to pick up as much 'carbon' (repre- sented by black balls) and dis- pose of them through a shoot- ing mechanism through a bin. The game ends with the robot lifting itself up and holding to a horizontal pole. Points were awarded as a team and several matches with different coun- tries were played during the entire competition. This competition was main- ly sponsored by MITA to cov- er registration fees and robot expenses. The student team was com- posed of Nicholas Borg, Dan- iel Dalli, Carl Lyon, Jean Paul Micallef and Emuel Vassallo, all MCAST software students studying at Level 4. The team was mentored by Senior lec- tures, Lucienne Micallef and Thomas Gatt.