Jamaican Robotics Team Wins Bronze at Global Robotics Olympics in Greece

Athens, Greece — Jamaica’s nine-member team to the 2024 Robotics Olympics in Athens, Greece, has secured a bronze medal, marking another achievement for the island in the global robotics arena. The competition, which concluded on Sunday, saw the Jamaican team receive the prestigious Dr. Mae Jemison Bronze Award for international unity.

The award is given to teams that demonstrate outstanding collaboration, professionalism, and the ability to break down barriers between nations, aligning with the spirit of the FIRST Global initiative. The Jamaican team was also recognized with two additional awards: the Social Media Challenge Award, for their active participation in social media challenges throughout the season, and the Best Storytelling Video Award, for creating a compelling and impactful team-profile video.

Out of 190 countries, Jamaica placed 58th overall in the competition. The team, consisting of five students, two coaches, and two additional support members, is scheduled to return to the island today.

The 2024 delegation featured students from six prominent Jamaican schools: 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 participating students were Alwyn Brown of KC, Ojani Chung of Campion, Emily Zhu of Hillel, Abbigail Cato of Immaculate, Sean-Michael Williams of AISK, and support student Jordon Williams of Wolmer’s.

The team has been guided for years by head coach Gavin Samuels, a Jamaica College alumnus, though he was unable to make the trip this year. Long-time coach Paul Pounall helped with the team’s preparation but also had to remain in Jamaica due to family matters.

FIRST Global, which organizes the event, supported the core team by covering airfares and hotel costs for five of the main students and two coaches.

Last year, the Jamaican Robotics team won the Katherine Johnson Award for engineering documentation, named after the African-American mathematician who played a pivotal role in NASA’s space missions.