48 Youngsters from Barbados to Participate in BJRC 2017
The Caribbean Science Foundation (CSF), a non-profit organization promoting science and engineering in the Caribbean, announced today that its third annual Barbados Junior Robotics Camp (BJRC) is starting, with 3 levels this year. The BJRC is a one-month summer enrichment program for young Barbadian students interested in robotics, and introduces them to basic technology and engineering concepts as well as computer programming.
Professor Cardinal Warde of MIT, who is the Interim Executive Direc
tor of the CSF, explained that “one of the long-term goals is to replicate the camp throughout the Caribbean, and to catalyze the integration of robotics into standard primary and secondary school curricula.”
In BJRC 2017, 48 students will take part in the 3 levels of the camp, with 14 girls and 34 boys. Level I of the camp caters to students between the ages of 9 and 13, and levels II and IIA, created due to popular demand, are for students who are graduates from the previous levels. The most advanced level IIA students will build autonomous robots using advanced principles, and create computer programs using the university-level coding language, Python. The 10 Camp Facilitators have science and technology backgrounds, and have been trained in the VEX Robotics curriculum. Mr. David Thorpe, a Barbadian software engineer based in Maryland, USA, and Dr. Cathy Radix, a Lecturer at UWI - St. Augustine are the Camp Directors. When asked by the campers about how she became interested in engineering, Dr. Radix responded, “I’ve always liked to see how things worked … engineering is making useful things." One of the highlights of BJRC will occur on Thursday August 3 when the young students showcase their robots to the public.
The sponsors of BJRC 2017 are the Central Bank of Barbados and the City of Bridgetown Credit Union. For more information about BJRC, please visit http://caribbeanscience.org/projects/junior_robotics_camp.php and http://caribbeanscience.org/projects/robotics_camps_2015_2016.php , or contact Professor Cardinal Warde at warde.csf@gmail.comor 1-617-699-1281. Donations to the Barbados Junior Robotics Camp can be made at http://caribbeanscience.org/donation/ , or by check mailed to the Caribbean Science Foundation.
