Dayspring Montessori International School at Dansoman in Accra has emerged champions at the just ended 2018 National & International Robotics inspired Science Education (RiSE) awards organised by the Ghana Robotics Academy Foundation (GRAF), a non-governmental organisation (NGO).
The school as part of the competition was challenged to design, construct and programme robots in two categories which was the Autonomous and the Multi-green colour sorter robots that could serve as assistants at the agricultural industry, garbage industry, and warehouse operations among others.
Radiant Splitters and Intellectual Bots which were the teams competing from the school won the overall best at the junior category.
Award winners include students from the primary, junior high schools, universities and churches across the country who received prizes for various achievements in the categories.
Other Acrobat team from the Methodist Girls Senior High School won the overall champions at the senior high level.
The schools which won the awards included Right to Dream Academy, Tarkwa Senior High School, Mount Olivet Methodist Academy, Opoku Ware Senior High School, St. Martin De Pores School, Ebenezer Methodist Church, Apam Senior High.
The rest were Archbishop Porter Girls Senior High School, St Augustine’s College, Prempeh College, Ghana Christian International High School, Mikrobot Academy among others.
The Director of the GRAF Foundation, Dr Yaw Okraku-Yirenkyi said the competition was aimed at creating problem-solvers for development adding that the awards was to acknowledge the efforts of students.
“We want to teach the children how to think creatively in solving problems we are surrounded with, any country that is unable to solve its problems quickly enough will soon be overcome,” he stated.
The Director explained that, participants had gone through robotics inspired science workshops, competitions and motivational sessions in order to compete with each other.
He was optimistic that science, technology, engineering and mathematics education were supposed to produce problem-solvers saying “it must lead to create innovators who can translate theories into useful outcomes”.
“Useful outcomes that can be used to solve real life problems but unfortunately, that is not the reality in our dear motherland and this situation must change”.
Dr Okraku-Yirenkyi added that, the foundation through its RiSE programme had trained about 80 beneficiaries including students, coaches, chaperons and judges to participate in international competitions.
He advised the participants to be tolerant of each other as “great minds think alike”, and called on individuals, government and corporate Ghana to support the foundation financially.
The chairman of the occasion, Rev. Kwesi Dickson commended the foundation as he believed that producing problem-solvers was pre-requisite for national development.
He advised participants to take the training seriously in order to compete at the international level in order to help bring about positive societal change.