Washington:  A group of seven Indian students has won two awards at the global robotics competition in the US organized by FIRST Global. A total of 157 countries participated in the global robotics competition.

The students from India, who are from Mumbai, bagged gold in the Zhang Heng Engineering Design Award category and bronze in the Global Challenge category of the  global competition organised by FIRST Global in Washington. In the Zahng Heng Award for Engineering Design category where India strikes a gold, teams whose robot exhibits excellent engineering and displays elegance and effectiveness during the challenge were awarded.

The Global Challenge award is presented to three teams that have achieved the most combined match points throughout the duration of the contest. The other winners of this category were Finland (Gold) and Singapore (Silver).

The Indian team was led by 15-year-old Rahesh (Caption of the group), the youngest member of the group. The other team members were as followed: Aadiv Shah, spokesperson; Harsh Bhatt, alliance strategist; Vatsin, alliance analyst; Adhyyan, robot tactician; Tejas, robot controller, and Raghav, robot driver.

FIRST Global (www.first.global) caps off the three-day robotics competition that saw one high-school team from each of the nearly 160 participating nations compete to address one of the world’s most pressing issues – water security on 18 July 2017. Accomplished inventor, Dean Kamen founded FIRST Global with the mission to inspire an interest in science and technology development among the 2 billion youth of the world and ensuring that every child has the chance to obtain necessary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) skills to overcome the greatest challenges our world faces.

The games – aimed at addressing water security – concluded with the Award Ceremony, during which teams were awarded gold, silver, and bronze medals in ten categories – both qualitative and quantitative in nature – highlighting the qualities that FIRST Global aims to inspire in the STEM leaders of tomorrow.

As FIRST Global’s guest of honor, President of the World Bank, Dr. Jim Yong Kim recognized the hard work the competitors put into the competition and encouraged them to pursue careers in STEM so as to secure prosperous livelihoods for all people around the world.