Jamaica

City: Central Mandeville

The Mandeville Primary School located in Jamaica has been inspiring girls to pursue STEM-robotics since 2019 when The Community Bots hosted its first training program there.

While the school was shut down due to COVID-19 restrictions, the teaching team was able to use CoderZ’s virtual robotics classes to engage the girls. And, in summer 2022, teachers received additional robotics training from the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy. In 2022 and 2023, The Community Bots donated updated robotics equipment and additional laptops so the school could return to hands-on robotics classes. The school is once again offering in-school STEM-robotics classes and participates in the national World Skills Competition where they earned top prizes in Junior Mobile Robotics in 2023. They also participated in their first World Robot Olympiad competition in 2023 making it to the second round.

 

Testimonials

Howard Salmon, Principal, Mandeville Primary School, Jamaica

“I register my profound gratitude to the generosity of The Community Bots that bought robotics gear and computer equipment for our school; they exposed our stakeholders (parents, teachers, students) to an entire field of robotics that complemented our National Standards Curriculum – from building to programming – that was highly interactive and fun-filled to the students and teachers! The students were able to move through the program at their own pace, and so they were all challenged while having fun. It was also especially beneficial for them to see and interact with women in robotics. Jack and Vivienne were encouraging and excited about the work. They were helpful and supportive when students and teachers were stuck with a new concept. We now have the materials, skill set, and highly motivated students to build on the knowledge acquired with our own robotics program! We are so excited to continue this work for our girls! Thanks a million to The Community Bots whose program was great.”

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