(Colonia, Yap) Island students have been receiving high tech training in the design and construction of robots as the five high schools of the Yap Robo League work towards their goal of a statewide robotics competition next spring.

Habele’s Director of STEM Programs, Amelia Weiss, first met with participating school leaders on Yap in early December. A series of workshops, site visits, and peer-to-peer trainings followed. Administrators, teachers, and select students from Yap High School, Outer Islands High School, Yap Catholic High School, Yap SDA School, and Faith Christian Academy participated throughout.



In addition to the five participating high schools, staff from the Yap State Public Service Corporation (YSPSC) and Pacific Missionary Aviation (PMA) joined each of the training sessions.

These local industry partners are also building robots in preparation for the all Yap State “Robo Day” scheduled from May 22 of 2018. “It’s clear the students and teachers are highly motivated,” observed Weiss between meetings. “They have the drive, the equipment is coming in, and now we are providing the technical support to help them meet their goals”


Stateside, students and teachers at South River High School in Edgewater, Maryland learned about their peers on Yap. The Power Hawks Robotics Club hosted Habele’s President, Scott Leis, who spoke to the team about the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Yap State, Micronesian culture and the Compacts of Free Association (COFA), which formally link the Freely Associated States (FAS) to the US.

Leis also answered questions from students about how they could support the students at their partner school – Yap Public High School.

“The students at South River High School were eager to learn all about the Western Pacific,” explained Leis. “Few realized the geographical realities of life on a remote archipelago or that there is a long-standing, formal relationship between the FSM and US”.


On the US West Coast, students of the Eagle Engineering Robotics Club at Chaminade College Preparatory High School packed a dozen boxes of donated robotics parts. These will be sent to Yap Catholic High School, which will distribute the equipment to the five participating schools across Yap State.

This donation compliments scores of supplies that Habele has already sent this year, thanks to a Technical Assistance Program grant from the United States Department of the Interior’s Office of Insular Affairs (OIA).

“We are thrilled to be helping our peers in the Pacific,” said Coach Tommy Smeltzer of Eagle Engineering. Since 2009, we’ve been proud to support the teams of the Yap Robo League through donations and technical support, and it is especially exciting to see the League continue to grow and thrive.”

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Students on Micronesia's famously traditional Island of Stone Money have begun to design and assemble hi-tech programmable robots.

Robotics clubs at five high schools in Yap received VEX Classroom and Competition Mechatronics kits earlier this month, kicking off expansion of the popular Yap Robo League.

Using the raw parts, students will design, build, and code robots to compete in a statewide STEM exhibition and robotics competition in May. Yap’s Robo League was established in 2011 by the US-based nonprofit “Habele,” and is now expanding across that state through a pilot grant award by the Office of Insular Affairs.



“We were inspired by the students from Yap who represented the Federated States of Micronesia this summer at the 2017 FIRST Global Challenge - H2O FLOW! international robotics competition for high school students here in Washington, D.C.,” said OIA Director Nik Pula.  “Through robotics, the Habele Outer Island Education Fund has been promoting the broadening of students’ experience in applying basic Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math skills in a positive, competitive, and hands-on way, and we are pleased to support expansion of this opportunity for more students in Yap,” continued Pula.


Pupils and teachers at Yap Catholic High School have taken the lead as peer mentors, supporting expansion of the Robotics Team at the Yap SDA School and the creation of new robotics clubs at Yap High School, Outer Island High School, and Faith Academy. Their efforts follow community meetings held by Habele in early Fall to gauge interest and develop plans for the league expansion.


“As the newest school on Yap we are thrilled part of this,” said John Malimai, Principal of Faith Christian Academy in Makiy. “The materials and technical training will expand the scope of our science instruction, and working with the other schools through the league helps us integrate and collaborate with other educators on island.”

While students at the five schools have begun tinkering, teachers and administrators are coordinating for a series of technical trainings in late 2017 and early 2018 to best guide their student’s work. The teams’ skills, developed over the coming months, will be showcased in a public five school robotics competition on May 22, 2018.

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Three students from Yap State proudly represented the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) at an international high school robotics competition this July in Washington DC.

Natasha Loochaz, John Steven Gilinug, and Francis Yarofalyango, comprised Team Micronesia, and joined students from over 150 other nations at the event.

Over several months each team designed, built, and programmed, their own complex robot based on the same simple parts kit, bringing the robots to the FIRST Global Challenge in DC for the matches and exhibition. In the arena, robots were organized into teams of three, battling to quickly gather and sort plastic balls representing clean water and contaminated water.

The team from Yap featured three graduating seniors from Yap Catholic High School, who earned the privilege to compete as an all-star team based on their performance in the Habele Yap Robo League.


In the first round of competition in DC, the FSM Team joined Argentina and Kuwait in a match against Bulgaria, Japan, and Grenada. Then Micronesia, allied with Vietnam and Australia, battled Cameroon, Chile, and Sudan. The day ended with a match pitting Micronesia, Brazil and Kosovo against China, Bermuda and Bahrain. For the day, the FSM went two for three.

Early the second day Micronesia partnered with Uzbekistan and Bangladesh in a match with Uruguay, Turkmenistan and Norway. They next teamed up with Ghana and Madagascar opposite Cameroon, Zambia and a pan South American team. Their final match reunited the Micronesians with Kuwait, along side Gabon, to compete with Japan, the Czech Republic, and a pan-Asian team.


The Habele Yap Robo League began in 2011 thanks to Eagle Engineering, the robotics team from Chaminade College Preparatory, a high school in California. Ameilia Weiss, then a Chaminade student, identified the opportunity for high school robotics on Yap during a dive trip to Micronesia. Back at school, she organized donations of robotics parts and instructional materials as a Habele volunteer, getting the League up and running.

Early in 2017 the League was invited to field a team at the FIRST Global event. Over a few short months, the students scrambled to design, assemble, and program, a competition worthy robot from a kit and system very different than the Vex Robotics parts with which they had worked in the past.

Lee Webber, former president and publisher of Guam’s Pacific Daily News, sounded the call in an April column about the team’s goal to compete in DC, inviting readers across the region to donate toward the costs of provisioning, training, and sending the students.


In addition to several hundred individual donations made by US and FSM citizens through a Habele Go Fund Me webpage, generous corporate support was provided by Tim Waters & Associates, the JoDoCo Group, the Matson Foundation, College of Micronesia, Blue Sky Traders, and United Airlines.

Senators Isaac V. Figir and Joseph Urusemal of the Yap Congressional Delegation made supporting the students a high priority for the Congress of Micronesia. A pair of targeted appropriations was smartly shepherded through the complex federal legislative process to quickly ensure the Team could make it to DC.

Over the course of the FIRST Global event, Team Micronesia earned six match points and 347 competition points. Their final ranking (131st of 163 teams) put them well ahead of more resourced teams from developed nations with widespread robotics, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and France.


The Micronesia team, and their mentor Gilippin Pongliyab, also met with FSM officials in DC, including Deputy Chief of Mission, Mr. James A Naich as well as former Peace Corps Volunteers who served in the Islands and Micronesian citizens living in and around DC.

in addition to the high stakes competitions, Natasha, John, and Francis, participated in elaborate Olympic style opening and closing ceremonies, proudly carrying the four-stared flag of Micronesia. They also networked at  workshops, forums, and team building activities with student teams from around the globe.

"The experience was a great one," said Francis Yarofalyango, known to his Team Micronesia peers as “Cisco.” "Participating in the competition was inspiring, especially seeing so many young people pursuing the same goals as I am. Robotics is not only fun but it helps me connect to other people around the world."###

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The famously traditional Island of Stone Money is sending top students to a high tech global robotics competition.

Students from 153 nations will gather in Washington DC this summer for the international high school robotics Olympics. Few will have traveled as far –geographically or culturally– as the Robo League team from Yap.

The FIRST Global Challenge is a worldwide robotics competition. Small student teams design, build, and compete complex robots from simple parts. The work demands hands-on mastery of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) skills. Featuring teams from across the planet, it also serves as a forum for students to meet and partner with diverse international peers.

Students in Yap –a remote Micronesian Island most famous for its Stone Money– established their own Robotics League in 2011, holding Micronesia’s first public exhibition in summer of 2012.

Organized by US-based NGO “Habele,” the Yap Robo League remains the only coordinated multi-year robotics program in the Central or Western Pacific. It has grown and thrived through a defining partnership with a robotics team at Chaminade College Preparatory School, in Los Angeles, California. In-kind gifts of time and talent, as well as private donations and local fundraisers entirely finance the league.



The all-star team headed to the FIRST Global Challenge is comprised of three high school seniors from Yap Catholic High School, winners of the 2016 Habele Robo League Championship.  They will spend nearly a week in the US Capital, participating in a lavish international opening ceremony, a series of robotics exhibitions, competitions, and eliminations, as well as tours and team building exercises with students from around the world.

“Since 2011, hardworking students, educators, and community members have grown and sustained one the Pacific’s most exceptional –and most popular– educational programs,” observed Alex Sidles, a Habele Director. “Invitation to the Global Challenge is just the latest testimony to the accomplishments and ambitions of the Yap Robo League, and its innovative focus on competition, incentives, and accountability.”

The many tiny islands of Micronesia are home to a semi cash economy, primarily comprised of subsistence agriculture and fishing. Their remoteness and relative lack of resources limits formal economic growth and opportunities. However, they place great emphasis on preserving cultural practices while learning modern technology.

Widely studied in the West, Yapese stone money, or "Rai," are an example. The large, circular stone disks have been used for centuries as currency. The system relies on oral histories of ownership because the carved stones are too large to move.

One project to sustain traditional practices is “Waa’gey,” an after school cultural skills program. Many Yap Robo League students participate, receiving instruction on-campus and after-school from Waa’gey mentors in centuries old Carolinian carving and sailing techniques.

“There are many connections between the techniques of canoe building and celestial navigation and the skills students develop with these robots,” explained Master Navigator Larry Raigetal. “The outside world’s increasing focus on so-called STEM instruction is, for us, something of a return to the way we’ve always understand knowledge and building. I hope our young people take that insight with them to Washington.”

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