West Rembo ‘bots’ trundle way to Dallas Worlds

Makati Mayor Abby Binay has provided financial support to West Rembo ES Robotics team which will compete in the 2024 VEX Robotics World Championship in Dallas, Texas, from 25 April to 3 May.

Composed of Grade 5 and Grade 6 students, the team comes from the West Rembo Elementary School, which ironically was among the public schools whose jurisdiction now fall on Taguig City government.

“Even though West Rembo Elementary School is no longer part of Makati, I decided to help them using my personal funds so they have less to worry about and can focus on the competition,” Binay said.

“They bring pride to the nation and deserve our full support.”

Team members paid a courtesy call on the mayor on Wednesday before heading to the United States.

They are Rio Pauline Dames, Cassandra Elyze Cruz, Andrew Lijarso and Zyric Abines.

The mayor said the parents of the students earlier contacted her asking for support. The parents told the mayor that the funds provided them were not enough to cover the team’s expenses.

The robotics program was introduced in Makati public schools during school year 2007-2008.

Since 2017, during Mayor Binay’s first term, a new robotics program was integrated into the curriculum for Grades 3 to 12 in the city’s public schools.

Developed by Makati, together with DepEd Makati, the Makati Robotics curriculum caters to a wide range of skill levels and is designed to hone students’ problem-solving skills and develop their ability for critical thinking.

For the past seven years, Makati has been providing public school students with age-appropriate robotics kits suited to their development level.

Entry-level kits featuring simplified designs and intuitive controls enabled them to start with simple skills like simple construction/building of robots and simple coding.

For the more experienced users, advanced kits with sophisticated features and capabilities were provided, such as complex construction of robots and complex programming.

Makati students also have the advantage of having a complete game field and game elements during practice and interschool competitions, making them more adaptable to competing at a broader scale.

Binay praised the team for their dedication and encouraged them to make the country proud. She also acknowledged the parents and coaches of the team for their unwavering support and guidance.

Earlier in the week, Binay also gave a warm sendoff to the four members of the Makatrix Robotics Team of Makati High School, the country’s lone public high school representative in the same competition.

She gave P58,000 pocket money to the members of the team. All expenses including airfare and hotel accommodations have also been fully covered.

An “EMBO” school in the field of Robotics is Pitogo High School, whose Robotics Team “Thunderbolts” won in the Tagisang Robotics 2022 of the Department of Science and Technology.

The team was also proclaimed champion in the first Virtual Robotics Challenge-19th Philippine Robotics Olympiad in 2020.