Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/869387
41 maltatoday, SUNDAY, 3 SEPTEMBER 2017 Information Technology How did Malta classify in this competition? Malta ended up in the middle of the classifi- cation. We managed to get more points than other countries which we never thought that we would be able to beat. Such teams includ- ed those from the United States of America and Russia. I was impressed and none of us were expecting that we would fare so well. As students, how much do you think that what you are learning at MCAST has helped you in this competition? Since the beginning of this competition, I immediately made the connection between school, work and this competition. Each situ- ation provides you with challenges that you need to overcome. If you have an assign- ment, you need to find a solution to what you are being asked, whereas at work if you have a programme that you need to write then you need to find the way to make it. In the case of this competition it was the same situation. We needed to build a robot that makes a particu- lar task. We need to programme it to perform the particular task and we actually put it to the test during the competition to find out if it was the correct solution. Do you think that there were any improve- ments that you could make to your robot? We entered the competition as late appli- cants. If we had been allocated more time, we would have made improvements in the colour sensors area. We used two colour sen- sors and the robot would filter between the two colours of the balls. The robot had two lanes from where the balls would pass. The colour sensor on one side was programmed to sense the blue balls only, while the other colour sensor placed on the other side would sense the orange balls. The robot was also programmed in such a way that if it senses a blue ball in a particular lane it rejects it but if it senses an orange balls then it lets it pass. The colour sensor itself was placed too far out and sometimes the balls were missing the colour sensor and still pass even if not hav- ing the correct colour. This could have been improved to give a better result. As a student working at MITA, how much do you feel that it helps you to learn more and achieve results such as in cases like this competition? As I mentioned before, I can connect the work experience with what I am learning be- cause in both cases there is a challenge to which you need to find a solution. The fact that you have a working background, where you always need to find a solution for your company or organisation, helped me under- stand how to find that one thing that solves the problem at hand. As an organisation, what can MITA do to encourage and enable students like you to achieve their goals and find the right solu- tions to their challenges? Diversity is one thing that could be helpful. I work within MITA's SABS team which manages the system for social security. We always work on a particular software and improve the way it works. I get a lot of work experience there. However, it would be interesting to gain experience on other systems which operate within the organisation. the first global robotic challenge The robot which was built from scratch by the three Maltese students