Antigua and Barbuda students performed well at this year’s Caribbean STEM
Olympiads (CSO) held on 17 – 21 January, 2024, in a virtual format. It was the
second staging of the event that was organized by the Caribbean Science
Foundation (CSF).
A CSO release said the in these Science, Technology, Engineering and Math
(STEM) Olympiads, individuals and teams representing educational institutions,
clubs or themselves competed in the (a) Math Olympiad, (b) Computer Coding
Olympiad and (c) Robotics Olympiad at three different age levels (12 – 15, 16 – 18
and 19 – 21). The Math Olympiad was held in a Jeopardy-style format and covered
topics ranging from consumer arithmetic to vector calculus. The Computer Coding
Olympiad tasked applicants to create apps, games, and websites aimed at solving a
challenge faced by Caribbean communities.
The challenges tackled by teams in the 2024 Olympiads included geohazards and
climate change, inter and intra country transportation, public health, non-
communicable diseases, crime, and money movement and financial education. The
Robotics Olympiad tasked applicants with building innovative robots from kits at
Level I, and complex robots starting from scratch with a set of random parts at
Level III.
A total of 131 students from 11 Caribbean countries registered for the 2024
Olympiads. After the preliminary rounds, 39 teams (83 students) made it to the
finals. Jamaica emerged with the most medals, eight, followed by Antigua and
Barbuda which earned six medals.
In the category Computer Coding Level 2; Ajanté Fraser, a student at the
University of the West Indies at Five Islands, but who represented himself in the
tournament as FrostByte, won gold for his project Disaster Ready Caribbean.
Adrian Judnarine of Patrick Lake Learning Institution with the name, Bread Man,
won bronze for his project, Get There.
In the category Computer Coding Level 3; Antigua and Barbuda won two golds
and a silver. Bread Man (Adrian Judnarine) won gold for his project, Mindful
Mate with the second gold going to Saiyan Jacobs of the Antigua State College
registered as Weather Machine, won for his project, Weather Monitor.
The team of Ajanté Fraser, Emmanuel Chiddick, D’Chaiya Emmanuel of the UWI
FIC, but who registered as The Pennies, won silver for their project, PennyWise.
In the Robotics Olympiad Level 2; Bread Man (Adrian Judnarine) won his third
medal when he picked up his second bronze for his project, Solar Tracker.
Professor Cardinal Warde, the Interim Executive Director of the CSF reported that
“the STEM outlook for the Region is very positive. This year we raised the bar a
little higher than it was in the inaugural year (2023) for the Math Olympiad, and I
was again impressed by the performance of the medalists. To further raise the bar
for our robotics and coding efforts, starting in April of 2024 the CSF will offer
coaching sessions for interested robotics and coding teams to help them prepare for
our 2025 Robotics and Computer Coding Olympiads.”
