Emmanuel Thomas, Lagos
October 6, 2015 – No fewer than five public Secondary Schools in Lagos will represent Nigeria at this year World Robot Olympiad (WRO) in Doha, Qatar later in the year following their performances at the 2015 Robotics Competition organized by Arc Lights Limited.
Permanent Secretary, State Ministry of Education, Mrs. Olabisi Ariyo ,who disclosed this in Lagos today noted that the Schools are Ojota Senior High School, Ojota; Apapa Senior High School, Apapa; Army Cantonment Girls Senior High School, Ojo; Oke-Afa Junior College, Oke-Afa, Isolo and Lagos State Junior Model College, Badore.
Ariyo explained that the Robotics Competition is aimed at encouraging students to learn how to build and program robots while applying their knowledge of Mathematics, Sciences, Creative Art, Communication skills and other things they must have learned in the classroom to solve real life problems.
According to her, “no fewer than 130 public and private schools nationwide participated in the competition comprising of 31 Senior Secondary Schools, 42 Junior Secondary Schools and 57 Primary Schools”.
She pointed out that the competition was contested in two categories namely open category involving primary, junior and senior secondary schools and the regular category involving junior and senior secondary schools.
In the open category competition, she noted that each school was asked to build a robot that performed certain tasks in accordance with the World Robot Olympiad (WRO) 2015 themed “Robots Explorers”, while in the regular category, two different tasks, treasure hunt and mountaineering, were given to the students.
“At the end of the keenly contested competition for senior secondary schools, Ojota Senior Secondary School represented by Emmanuel Ugoala, Amina Mohammed and David Dikenwa scored a total of 350 points to clinch the top position while Apapa Senior High School, Apapa represented by Ehioje Odion, Michael Uche and Happiness Okon scored 150 points and came second and Army Cantonment Girls Senior High School, Ojo, represented by Saidat Saheed, Faith Ogbu and Zainab Adeshina scored 125 points came third in the regular category”, she said.
Ariyo opined that in the Junior Secondary Schools category, Oke-Afa Junior College, Isolo represented by Chinasa Anikweobi, Taiwo King and Aminat Fatai and Lagos State Junior Model College, Badore represented by Blessing Odekpe, Lydia Silver and Fuad Abdulsalam came second and third respectively in the regular category. Lagos State emerged the overall best state at the competition having won in five of the category.
