FIELD TRIP & PIONEER AWARD – NEW AT ROBOTICS & TURKEY 2024
FIELD TRIP TO DISCOVERY BAY MARINE LAB AND PIONEER AWARD – NEW AT ROBOTICS & TURKEY 2024, THE 3-DAY YOUTH ROBOTICS CONFERENCE IN MONTEGO BAY, JAMAICA
The international conference broadens the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) talent pipeline by engaging children aged 9-14 yrs. old, particularly girls and children of color.
An exciting field-trip, the inaugural Pioneer Award, and two highly pertinent speakers are confirmed for the 2nd annual Robotics & turkey (R&t) Conference being held over the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, Thursday, November 28 to Saturday, November 30, 2024 at the all-inclusive Catalonia Resort in Montego Bay, Jamaica. Conference registration will remain open until the resort reaches capacity.
The international conference’s audience is FIRST® LEGO® League (FLL) team delegations primarily from Jamaica and United States that consist of a team member, their parent, and a team coach. There are 45,000 FLL teams worldwide.
R&t has been featured in Forbes and is endorsed by the Dean of Admissions at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The inaugural 2023 conference was a resounding success!
The 2024 robotics conference’s theme is the 2024-2025 FLL’s SUBMERGED theme: “Use creative thinking and LEGO® technology to explore the layers of the ocean and bring their learnings and ideas to the surface as students “sea” into the future.”
Conference participants will engage in snorkeling, scuba diving, and hands-on learning during a field-trip to the Discovery Bay Marine Laboratory.
A confirmed speaker is Mr. Rayanu Adam, a 2nd year electrical engineering and computer science undergraduate student at Cornell University. He will narrate his experience being a member of Cornell University's Autonomous Underwater Vehicle 41-person team that competed August 2024 in the RoboSub competition in Irvine, California. Mr. Adam is a recipient of The Gates Scholarship and is a 2022 alumnus of MIT Introduction to Technology, Engineering, and Science (MITES).
Another confirmed speaker is Dr. Mona Webber, a marine biologist and Head of the Department of Life Sciences and the Grace Kennedy Foundation, James Moss Solomon Sr. Chair in Environment at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. She conducts research in Jamaica’s marine environment ranging from coastal systems ecology & rehabilitation to water quality and microplastics.
Finally, the conference will confer its first Pioneer Award. The recipient is environmental scientist, the late Dr. Barry A. Wade, O.D., B.Sc., Ph.D. (in Marine Biology), M.J.I.M.
Please go to roboticsturkey.org for more conference information and join our mailing list for updates.
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