Indian Students Bag Two Awards At First Global Robotics Olympiad In US:- At the first global robotics Olympiad in the US, a group of seven Indian students have bagged two awards.

Around 157 countries participated in the competition. According to a statement, the students, who hail from Mumbai, won gold for Zhang Heng Engineering Design Award and bronze for Global Challenge Match at the international robotics challenge. The Olympiad is organized by FIRST Global in Washington.

The Indian team was led by 15-year-old Rahesh, the youngest member of the group. Others were Aadiv Shah, team spokesperson; Harsh Bhatt, alliance strategist; Vatsin, alliance analyst; Adhyyan, robot tactician; Tejas, robot controller and Raghav, robot driver.

The group said in its Facebook page, “Absolutely thrilled that we were able to live up to our promise, we had a lot of fun at the FIRST Global Challenge 2017.”

The event that was held for three days, struck tense moments for the all-girl team from Afghanistan, whose visas were denied twice by the State department. However, they were  able to arrive over the weekend to participate in the competition, due to a last-minute intervention by President Donald Trump. The “Rajaa Cherkaoui El Moursli award” was won by the Afghan team for courageous achievement. First Daughter Ivanka Trump met them at the competition venue in the morning. “We are not terrorists. We are simple people with ideas. We need a chance to make our world better. This is our chance,” said Alireza Mehraban, an Afghan software engineer who is the team’s mentor said.

The competition for the next year would be hosted by Mexico city.

SUPRAJA