SUNY Old Westbury played host to the first MakeX International Robot Competition in the United States on Sunday, October 13, 2019. Hosted by the Long Island Youth Coding and Innovation Club, local students from schools across Long Island competed in this international competition, which was judged by six Old Westbury students majoring in Mathematics, Computer & Information Science Department.
Initiated in 2016, by the world-renowned youth STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics) teaching equipment development company, MakeBlock, the international competition has been held in more than 20 countries with 3,500 teams participating. Players in the competition must use MakeBlock's robot kit to design their robot, and complete various tasks within a given time frame to receive a score.
The championship team from the Old Westbury event was the "Alliance of FruityFruit" and "Instinct" team from Three Village School and Herricks School respectively. The students will move on to represent the United States at the MakeX Global Finals in Shenzhen, China later this year.
Under the advisement of Dr. Lan Zhao of the Mathematics, Computer & Information Science Department, students Jose Torres, Dany Hanna, Hanjun Cai, Mobeen Kamal, Dominic LoMonaco,Michael Kabat and Professor Doyoung Park went through training to referee the competition.
