Team Saint Lucia heads to South Korea for FIRST Global robotics challenge

A team of young innovators from Saint Lucia is flying the island's flag at this year's FIRST Global Challenge, an Olympics-style international robotics competition that opens in Incheon, South Korea on 7 October and runs until 10 October. The students will pit a robot they built themselves against entries from more than 190 countries, all working to the 2026 theme of Igniting Innovation.

As reported by St. Lucia Times, Team Saint Lucia's entry is a ball-shooting robot designed to propel an object into a goal, and it was put together under the guidance of Kevon Clark, a mechatronics engineer at the Saint Lucia technology company Orbtronics. For the third year running, Orbtronics has acted as FIRST Global's facilitating partner on the island, leading the team's technical development.

At a pre-departure ceremony for the team, Sherguan Roserie, co-founder of Orbtronics, said the months of preparation mattered well beyond the company itself. The team had spent countless hours getting the robot ready, he said, and its place at the international competition represented something bigger than the people involved. He added that the students' participation stands as a beacon for young people growing up with an interest in technology and robotics, showing them there are avenues to pursue their passions.

Team captain Matthew George was frank about how demanding the build had been. Getting ready for the FIRST Global Challenge has been difficult, he said, pointing out that challenge is in the name. The team persevered by listening to one another, sharing responsibilities and following the engineering process, and in the end had to build the robot three separate times to get it right.

Sponsorship for this year's trip comes from LUCELEC and Republic Bank, the latter through its Power to Make a Difference programme. That support has allowed the students to travel to South Korea and take their place alongside national teams from across the globe.

For readers who follow sport in Saint Lucia, this is competition of a different kind but with familiar stakes: a small island team taking on the world through discipline and teamwork. FIRST Global was founded on the idea that young engineers, like young athletes, learn most when tested against the best from other nations, and Saint Lucia has now sent a team three years in a row.

The competition also says something about where the island's talents lie. Saint Lucia is known to most British visitors for its coastline, for beaches in St Lucia such as those near Soufrière, and for the Pitons rising from the sea, but the island has a growing technology and engineering community too. Companies like Orbtronics, which mentors school-age students in robotics, are building skills that could shape the economy of Saint Lucia in the years ahead, in the same way tourism and agriculture have done before.

For families considering the island as a destination, stories like this add depth beyond the usual holiday picture. Family holidays in St Lucia often centre on the beach and the rainforest, yet the island also has museums, plantations and community events where children can see local innovation and the culture and traditions of Saint Lucia up close. Many families planning holidays to St Lucia time their trip around school breaks, which coincides with the island's dry season from December to April, generally the best time to visit St Lucia for reliable sunshine.

Those who do visit will find plenty of things to do in St Lucia beyond the resorts, from hiking in St Lucia's rainforest trails to exploring the drive-in volcano at Sulphur Springs. Accommodation ranges widely, from all-inclusive resorts in St Lucia aimed at families and couples to boutique hotels in St Lucia that trade on small-scale design and a personal welcome, so the island caters to very different styles of trip.

Getting there is straightforward from the UK, with flights to St Lucia landing at Hewanorra International Airport in the south of the island, and St Lucia cruises also bring many callers to Castries and Soufrière each week. For couples, the island remains a firm favourite for a honeymoon in St Lucia, with resorts and villas in St Lucia dotted along the west coast where the sunsets are best.

Back in Incheon, Team Saint Lucia's focus is squarely on the competition itself. Under George's captaincy, the team will compete across the four days of the event, which closes on 10 October. Whatever the final standings, the students return home having built a working robot three times over and tested it against the world, and with Roserie's hope that their example will draw more young Saint Lucians into robotics and technology.

The next milestone will be the team's return and the follow-up from this year's Challenge, with Orbtronics expected to continue its role as facilitating partner for a fourth year, scouting and mentoring the next generation of Saint Lucian innovators.