A girls' school robotics team from the Negev town of Yeruham has won the national FIRST Tech Challenge robotics competition and will go on to represent Israel in the international round of the competition in St. Louis, Missouri. The international FIRST school robotics competition is open to eighth-to-10th-grade pupils. The Amit Kamah girls' school from Yeruham battled it out with teams from high schools all over Israel at the national heats this week in Raanana. The teams built the robots themselves and were judged on how well the robots were programmed and functioned in activities such as picking up balls, climbing over hills, and defending themselves against competing robots. Each team was also asked to donate to its home community through a project of its choice. The Amit Kamah team won the Inspiration Prize, the most prestigious category in the competition, which judges the team's community work as well as the performance of its robot. The Amit Kamah students "adopted" children from the elementary school in the nearby Bedouin community of Rakhma and taught them robotics, enabling them to eventually form their own robotics team. Team captain Adelle Weizman said, "We believe that through science and robotics it's possible to influence the community, and hope to inspire other pupils." Amit Kamah principal Shula Levy added, "Our robotics team's achievement is much more than a score or a national or international ranking -- it's an achievement of cooperation, determination, and wonderful team work. I'm certain that with messages like these, the team will continue to succeed." Yeruham Local Council head Michael Bitton also congratulated the Amit Kamah girls, saying, "The young leaders stuck to it, built an ingenious robot, worked as a team and contributed to the community, and for that they won first prize and [will] represent Israel in the international competition." The team is mentored by a group from the Yeruham Science Center, comprising Ido Frommer, Amichai Ben-Harush and engineers Avinoam Doron and David Levi Hevroni, both of whom have daughters at Amit Kamah.
