The Philippine Robotics Team to the 17th International Robotics Olympiad held at Bucheon, South Korea brought home 62 awards, the biggest tally for the country since it joined the competition in 2007.
The PH team finished in the top three of five categories:
De La Salle Santiago Zobel School
3 Gold Medals, Mission Challenge
Silver Medal, Robot in Movie Challenge
Letran Calamba
3 Silver Medals, Creativity Categories Junior
2 Bronze Medals, Robot in Movie Challenge
Grace Christian College
3 Bronze Medals, Creativity Categories Challenge
St. Martin de Porres Catholic School
2 Bronze Medals, Robot in Movie Junior
The top medalist schools were joined by other Philippine teams to bring back 51 Technical Awards from 6 categories, including:
- De La Salle Santiago Zobel School, 4 Technical Awards in Robot in Movie Junior
- Letran Calamba, 2 Technical Awards in Robot Movie Challenge
- St. Martin de Porres Catholic School, De La Salle Santiago Zobel School, Eton International School, each with 2 Technical Awards in Robot Movie Challenge
- Jubilee Christian Academy, with 4 Technical Awards in Robot Movie Challenge
- Grace Christian College, 5 Technical Awards in Mission Challenge
- Philippine Yuh Chiau School, 5 Technical Awards in Emergency Rescue Standard Junior, Technical Award in Emergency Rescue Standard Challenge, and 3 Technical Awards in Travers Standard Junior
- Calamba City Science, Technical Award in Travers Extream Challenge
- Grace Christian College, 3 Technical Awards in Creativity Categories Junior
- Colegio de san Juan De Letran-Calamba, 3 Technology Awards in Creativity Categories Challenge
- Jubilee Christian Academy, 3 Presentation Awards, 5 Endeavor Awards, in Creativity Categories Challenge
- St. Dominic De Guzman School, 3 Endeavor Awards in Creativity Categories Challenge
The country’s representatives to the Robotics Olympiad were composed of 120 students, aged 10-15 years old, from over 20 Philippine schools. The student team competed against some 1,200 students from around the world.
The young Filipino innovators won in various the categories against the more dominant countries of Korea and China which have established robotics training, including robotics programming and robot building.
“The Philippines is ready for robotics innovation because we have been doing this [joining the Olympiad] since 2007. In these 9 years, we have succeeded in promoting robotics; we are doing it now in over 70 schools… our technology is developing, the children are getting better… we are levelling up,” Data Science and Technology Corporation President Anthony Gabitan, sponsoring partner of the Philippine team, told media.
