Habele Robotics League adds 23rd Micronesian High School

Madolenihmw High School has joined the Pohnpei Robo League, making it the 23rd high school in Micronesia to offer students the chance to design, build, and compete robots on their own, and in partnership with other high school teams.

Located in Pohnlangas, Madolenihmw High School (MHS) serves students in the central east of Pophnei island, to the east of Mount Nahna Laud and south of Mount Kapwuriso. NHS is also the high school closest to the ruins of Nan Madol, a series of megalithic monuments on nearly 100 artificial islets on a coral reef offshore.

World-class training for Robotics Students in Yap

(Colonia, Yap) Island students have been receiving high tech training in the design and construction of robots as the five high schools of the Yap Robo League work towards their goal of a statewide robotics competition next spring.

Habele’s Director of STEM Programs, Amelia Weiss, first met with participating school leaders on Yap in early December. A series of workshops, site visits, and peer-to-peer trainings followed. Administrators, teachers, and select students from Yap High School, Outer Islands High School, Yap Catholic High School, Yap SDA School, and Faith Christian Academy participated throughout.

Robotics Kits Arrive in Yap, Remote Island of Stone Money

Yap Catholic High School Student opening their third box of robotics parts

Students on Micronesia's famously traditional Island of Stone Money have begun to design and assemble hi-tech programmable robots.

Robotics clubs at five high schools in Yap received VEX Classroom and Competition Mechatronics kits earlier this month, kicking off expansion of the popular Yap Robo League.

Using the raw parts, students will design, build, and code robots to compete in a statewide STEM exhibition and robotics competition in May. Yap’s Robo League was established in 2011 by the US-based nonprofit “Habele,” and is now expanding across that state through a pilot grant award by the Office of Insular Affairs.

Parents, Educators, & Leaders talk Robots in Yap

Three students from Yap represented the Federated States of Micronesia at an international robotics competition in Washington DC this summer. One of nearly two hundred national and regional teams competing, the Micronesian students bested seasoned squads from developed nations including the United States and France.

Now there is talk of expanding the modest “Yap Robo League,” allowing more island students the opportunity to engage in robotics through high school based clubs and classes in the remote Western Pacific.

Micronesia Students Proudly Compete in Robotics "Olympics"

Three students from Yap State proudly represented the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) at an international high school robotics competition this July in Washington DC.

Natasha Loochaz, John Steven Gilinug, and Francis Yarofalyango, comprised Team Micronesia, and joined students from over 150 other nations at the event.

Over several months each team designed, built, and programmed, their own complex robot based on the same simple parts kit, bringing the robots to the FIRST Global Challenge in DC for the matches and exhibition. In the arena, robots were organized into teams of three, battling to quickly gather and sort plastic balls representing clean water and contaminated water.

From Stone Money to STEM Olympians: Micronesian students head to International Robotics Competition

The famously traditional Island of Stone Money is sending top students to a high tech global robotics competition.

Students from 153 nations will gather in Washington DC this summer for the international high school robotics Olympics. Few will have traveled as far –geographically or culturally– as the Robo League team from Yap.

The FIRST Global Challenge is a worldwide robotics competition. Small student teams design, build, and compete complex robots from simple parts. The work demands hands-on mastery of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) skills. Featuring teams from across the planet, it also serves as a forum for students to meet and partner with diverse international peers.

Students in Yap –a remote Micronesian Island most famous for its Stone Money– established their own Robotics League in 2011, holding Micronesia’s first public exhibition in summer of 2012.

Organized by US-based NGO “Habele,” the Yap Robo League remains the only coordinated multi-year robotics program in the Central or Western Pacific. It has grown and thrived through a defining partnership with a robotics team at Chaminade College Preparatory School, in Los Angeles, California. In-kind gifts of time and talent, as well as private donations and local fundraisers entirely finance the league.