Barbados won three medals – gold, silver and bronze – in the 2024 Caribbean Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Olympiads, the second edition of the competition.
The Caribbean Science Foundation (CSF) event, held January 17-21 in a virtual format, saw individuals and teams competing in a Math Olympiad, Computer Coding Olympiad and Robotics Olympiad.
The gold medal for Barbados was earned in Level III of the Math Olympiad by Team Psi-Kicks consisting of University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus students Simeon Green, Ian Francis, and Tyreke Jones. The Kolij Robotics Club team of Harrison College students Jovani Gittens, Nathan Nicholls, Tykairi Sargeant, and Maliqua Cherubin copped the silver medal in Level II of the Robotics Olympiad with their Plant Care Robot. Random Walk, a team of Queen’s College students Aian Deane-Warner and Nalani Chassang earned the bronze medal in Level II of the Math Olympiad.
“It was an unbelievable experience for me which I believe every young Caribbean student should experience,” said Green of the gold medal-winning team.
“Preparations for the Math Olympiad exposed me to new concepts that I would need for my university degree and for my future endeavours beyond academia. I have grown immensely, not only in my understanding of certain mathematical concepts but in how I can apply them in real-world situations.”
The Math Olympiad was held in a Jeopardy-style format and covered topics ranging from consumer arithmetic to vector calculus. The Computer Coding Olympiad tasked applicants to create apps, games, and websites aimed at solving a challenge faced by Caribbean communities. The challenges tackled by teams in the 2024 Olympiads included geohazards and climate change, inter and intra-country transportation, public health, non-communicable diseases, crime, and money movement and financial education. The Robotics Olympiad tasked applicants with building innovative robots from kits at Level I, and complex robots starting from scratch with a set of random parts at Level III.
A total of 131 students from 11 Caribbean countries registered for the 2024 Olympiads. After the preliminary rounds, 39 teams (83 students) made it to the finals. There were 47 finalists in the Math Olympiad, 22 in the Computer Coding Olympiad, and 14 in the Robotics Olympiad. Medal certificates and cash prizes of US$500, US$400, US$300 and US$200 were awarded to the teams winning platinum, gold, silver, and bronze medals, respectively.
At the awards and closing ceremony on January 21, it was revealed that Barbados was fourth in the medal count, following Jamaica which won eight medals, Antigua and Barbuda with six, and Belize with four. Saint Lucia won two medals, and Grenada, Guyana, St Kitts and Nevis and Trinidad and Tobago each won one.
Commenting on the performances of the teams, Interim Executive Director of the CSF Professor Cardinal Warde said the STEM outlook for the region is “very positive”.
“This year, we raised the bar a little higher than it was in the inaugural year (2023) for the Math Olympiad, and I was again impressed by the performance of the medalists. To further raise the bar for our robotics and coding efforts, starting in April of 2024, the CSF will offer coaching sessions for interested robotics and coding teams to help them prepare for our 2025 Robotics and Computer Coding Olympiads,” he added.
The Caribbean STEM Olympiads is an initiative of the CSF, a regional non-profit NGO with the mission of assisting with the development and diversification of the economies of the Caribbean by promoting STEM education reform and stimulating technology-based entrepreneurship.
The institutional sponsors for this year’s competition included CIBC, Emera Caribbean, Peloton International, Trident Insurance, and TAG software. (PR/BT)
