Swerve Robotics in Botswana

The trip's main event was Culture Meets Code, which Dare to Dream hosted with Swerve Robotics and the U.S. Embassy in Gaborone. There we advocated with government ministers and business leaders for more STEM funding in schools, funding for robotics clubs, and lower tariffs on educational STEM goods. I was one of the four who gave the "Introduction to FIRST and FLL" speech, which we wrote and memorized within a day of meeting: FIRST's technical side, its core values, and what it had done for each of us. After a panel, the dignitaries who had to leave early saw a quick robot demo, and the guests went round the stations, where the coding and robot demos drew the most interest.

The day before the embassy event, we prepared at Dare to Dream's office with students from a local FIRST LEGO League team. Together we set up the hands-on stations for the event, each to be run by one of us and one of them: a robot game demo, a code-it-yourself area, an innovation project and the core values. I also taught them some programming to get them ready for the event, and a teammate and I wrote the "Introduction to FIRST and FLL" speech we would give there.

With Dare to Dream we ran a cultural exchange at Mogoditshane Senior Secondary School in Gaborone for more than 50 students, some visiting from Mogoditshane Junior Secondary. After speeches from the schools' leadership, Dare to Dream's founder and our coach, and a performance by the school's dance club, we walked them through FIRST LEGO League: the robot game, the innovation project and the core values, and how FIRST is about leadership and communication as much as technical skill. Then we split into small groups. I went through the SPIKE Prime code I'd written for the day, into Python and more advanced code for anyone who wanted it, and some students stayed more than half an hour after the end to keep asking questions.