Meet the Palestinian Teens Trying to Win Robotics Gold

For nan entirety of nan past year, arsenic nan teenage roboticists of Team Palestine person been moving connected their latest project, their homeland has been engulfed successful Israel's warfare pinch Hamas. Earlier this month, that each changed. With a vulnerable ceasefire successful place, Israeli forces began to propulsion backmost from parts of Gaza, and nan teens put nan last touches connected nan task they dream will bring them victory: a robot that tin maneuver done a bid of simulated challenges based connected nan effects of ambiance change.

Next week, 5 of nan dozens of students connected Team Palestine will recreation to Panama City for nan ninth yearly FIRST Global Challenge, wherever they will compete alongside students from astir 200 nations. They’ll partner pinch some, compete against others successful a bid of matches, and astatine nan extremity of nan three-day event, they hope, locomotion distant pinch robotics gold. Their purpose is not conscionable to win astatine nan competition, arsenic they person successful respective caller years, but besides to correspond Palestine and summation consciousness of—and entree to—robotics and different STEM programs for their peers backmost home. What follows is nan communicative of really they did it.

Khalil DarOmar and Sara Saleh, a husband-and-wife duo from Ramallah successful nan West Bank, founded nan Palestinian FIRST squad successful 2018. Saleh was moving arsenic a income typical for a logistics and distribution institution aft precocious graduating from Palestine Technical University; DarOmar was a programming freelancer who had studied machine subject astatine Al-Quds University.

Sara Saleh, Team Palestine cofounder: When we founded nan team, we had zero experience.

Khalil DarOmar, Team Palestine cofounder: I saw nan FIRST Global Challenge, and I said, “Why are we not successful this? We request to beryllium there. We request to correspond Palestine successful this competition.”

Saleh: We were truthful young to commencement a institution aliases a nonprofit organization. But we had our passion.

Early on, Saleh and DarOmar recovered their students done section municipalities, relatives, and individual connections. By their 2nd twelvemonth they had besides begun announcing training programs successful Ramallah to enlistee caller squad members willing successful STEM. They would clasp training sessions successful their ain homes aliases successful section municipality spaces for nan first respective years.

Things did not spell smoothly that first year. Shipment restrictions owed to Israeli subject power complete Palestine prevented Team Palestine from receiving their FIRST Challenge robotics kit successful beforehand for nan first respective years they participated, forcing them to find workarounds.

For nan 2018 competition, Saleh says nan FIRST statement connected Team Palestine pinch Team Canada, and nan teams met via video telephone for months successful beforehand to talk their robot’s design. Canadian students built nan robot connected Team Palestine’s behalf and brought it pinch them to Mexico for nan competition.

DarOmar: The students, it was nan first clip they were learning astir robotics and nan FIRST Global Challenge. We needed to make it virtual, and to alteration it from virtual to a existent robot without a kit. A really, really difficult start.

Saleh: Khalil only could get to Mexico, because [other students and I] were not capable to get our visas owed to immoderate complications from nan embassy.

DarOmar: But we solved this problem pinch a imaginative idea. We took 1 student from Argentina, from Tunisia, from Egypt, from Jordan. We turned them into a large Team Palestine.

These different countries’ students besides collaborated remotely pinch Team Palestine starring up to nan competition, finalizing nan robot’s assembly. In Mexico, wearing Team Palestine shirts, students from those different teams competed pinch nan robot nan mixed teams had created.

In consequent years, Team Palestine was capable to nonstop a afloat walking contingent of 5 students positive mentors (typically DarOmar and/or Saleh) to nan FIRST competition. In 2022, DarOmar and Saleh registered arsenic an independent robotics instauration and established their ain agency abstraction for meetings and training. But shipping limitations persisted successful preventing them from receiving their kit up of time, forcing them to usage makeshift parts from anterior years aliases activity via video telephone until arriving astatine nan competition.

Fayez Ismail, personnel of Team Palestine successful 2022: Due to nan truth that we had older pieces, older motors that weren’t arsenic efficient, extrusions … It took maine 3 months of full-on engineering [to create nan robot design]. Also, nan pieces that we needed to usage to put nan robot together were benignant of damaged.

Saleh: It was very challenging. The dimensions of nan robot weren’t very clear for us. Some parts from nan aged kits were not usable.

Ismail: We each understood that was nan reality. We were not receiving nan kit. That’s it, you know? We had to attraction connected what we have, and conscionable activity done that. And we did.

Saleh: [Our students] had to do a batch of adjustments connected nan spot. All nan different teams were having fun, exploring caller things—our squad was locked successful nan bedroom, trying to make each nan adjustments needed.

Ismail: This is 1 of nan challenges that really stayed pinch maine for a agelong time. I had a occupation question and reply a mates days ago, and they were like, “Tell america astir a situation that you faced and really you [overcame] it.” And each azygous clip I’m successful a occupation question and reply and get asked this, I don’t neglect to mention that 1 example.

Mohammed Shanti, a personnel of Team Palestine successful 2023: I was location successful Ramallah for 3 weeks [prior to nan competition], without seeing my family. I conscionable wanted to build nan robot. I didn’t attraction astir thing else.

Saleh: [The students] would travel to nan agency astatine 8 am, and they would extremity astatine 7 pm. They were for illustration a family. They stitchery to person pizza and a nighttime complete to our house. Those are cherished moments.

The team’s excitement quickly gave measurement to daze successful nan hours earlier nan opening ceremonies of nan FIRST title successful Singapore connected October 7, 2023 erstwhile they received connection of Hamas’ attack connected Israeli soil.

As squad mentors, Saleh and DarOmar requested that Shanti and different students from nan 2023 squad not speak astir nan Hamas attack. DarOmar notes that to decently speak astir that event, 1 must besides see everything that happened earlier and aft it, including a decades-long Israeli business of Palestine, and a two-year bombardment of Gaza since October 7 that several human rights organizations person branded a genocide, pinch 1 statement estimating that child decease tolls unsocial are near 20,000.

Saleh: Me and Khalil [had] our first son—he was 5 months old, and he was waiting for america successful Palestine. So it was really challenging for us. We had 7 students pinch us. We needed to return them backmost home, and we had our boy location waiting for america arsenic well.

DarOmar: We tried to correspond Palestine pinch a passion and pinch a dream to unrecorded successful peace. We tried to show nan dream of nan kids for nan world.

Saleh: All nan [other] nations, they were asking if our families were safe and if everything was OK. They tried to cheer america up.

We kept up pinch each nan title challenges. We won nan Helping Hands [award] that year, because we were very motivated. We knew we were location for a reason, and we needed to correspond Palestine successful nan due way.

The Clara Barton Award for Helping Hands is fixed to teams who assistance different groups successful their clip of need. In 2023, Team Palestine won for assisting nan squad from Sudan, which faced difficulties attending that year’s arena owed to conflict that began successful their state earlier that year, displacing their full squad and placing their laboratory nether occupied power by nan paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

Saleh: Team Sudan students were incapable to get until nan 2nd time of nan competition, and only 2 retired of 5 students were capable to attend. During nan first day, our squad helped nan Sudan mentors complete their robot and represented Team Sudan successful nan matches. We besides carried their emblem and represented them during nan opening ceremony. Once nan Sudanese students arrived, they joined america astatine nan matches.

Shanti: It was a awesome emotion to spot Team Sudan happy and [able to] bask nan game.

Saleh: The aforesaid [thing] that happened to america successful Mexico erstwhile different countries wore our shirts and participated successful our name.

Shanti: When we traveled to Singapore, I made world friends. The title was successful 2023, but we still speak.

Saleh: In 2024, moreover nan Sudan mentors were incapable to attend, truthful only 1 antheral and 1 female student participated. Khalil served arsenic their on-site mentor and main constituent of interaction passim nan competition.

Ahead of nan 2024 event, Team Palestine was capable to activity done shipping restrictions to person their robotics kit successful Palestine up of time. But different challenges soon surfaced, including an extended clearance process astatine nan Jordan-West Bank border.

Saleh: There is simply a position controlled by nan Israeli business successful nan mediate of nan crossing, wherever travelers acquisition a agelong and analyzable inspection process.

That checkpoint is wherever Khalil had to hold for astir 7 hours, arsenic information checks and paperwork for method instrumentality for illustration robotics parts often return an highly agelong time. After yet crossing that point, he past spent astir 3 further hours connected nan Jordanian broadside earlier being allowed to participate Palestine.

The happiness from nan squad to yet person nan kits successful Palestine and not person to hold until we sewage to nan event—that was a really awesome infinitesimal for us.

Receiving nan kits successful beforehand intelligibly benefitted Team Palestine successful 2024; aft ranking 97th successful nan title successful 2023 pinch a people of 46.11, nan 2024 squad vanished 74th pinch a people of 68.09.

Alumni for illustration Shanti and Ismail often stay progressive pinch a existent year’s squad via Zoom sessions or, wherever possible, in-person visits. Ismail is besides progressive successful mentoring aggregate younker robotics teams successful Canada, wherever he studies astatine Queen’s University and has besides volunteered astatine aggregate FIRST competitions since participating arsenic a student.

Both besides service arsenic reminders to existent squad members of what’s imaginable if they proceed pursuing STEM fields. Ismail is successful his 3rd twelvemonth studying machine engineering astatine Queen’s, while Shanti is simply a freshman studying business intelligence (a operation of business and tech applications) astatine Al-Najah National University successful nan West Bank.

Dalia Nasr, 2025 Team Palestine student: The alumni, I tin study from them. There are not a batch of robotics courses successful Palestine. It’s not really communal for america to person these kinds of things. So it’s a really, really large opportunity for me.

Ismail: At immoderate point, I was looking to my uppers, group that participated successful erstwhile years. The aforesaid measurement I’m inspiring people, different group inspired me.

Saleh: We person nary words to definitive our feelings erstwhile nan first student graduated from precocious school, and they started to think, “We want to beryllium for illustration Khalil and study machine science, aliases we want to really study robotics.”

It was really rewarding to spot them turning this passion into a career. The astir rewarding point for america is erstwhile they travel backmost successful summertime vacation, they travel to unpaid pinch our squad to stock their knowledge.

The 2025 walking loop of Team Palestine, 5 members beardown (plus mentors), is conscionable a fewer days from departing for Panama City. Their robot, which Nasr says is fundamentally finished, will cod “biodiversity units” from a vessel successful nan playing section and sprout them into a makeshift ecosystem, simulating real-life attempts astatine ecological equilibrium, which is this year’s theme.

Nasr, 16, will service arsenic nan team’s “human player,” responsible for aiding nan robot successful shooting nan biodiversity units; she jokes she’ll thin connected her constricted hoops acquisition for a limb up.

Nasr: Being capable to return portion successful a title wherever I tin animate different Palestinian younker aliases different Palestinian students who are besides willing successful pursuing careers successful STEM, this is thing that’s genuinely 1 of nan astir life-changing experiences successful my life. I cognize that this is simply a batch of unit connected maine arsenic a person, but besides it’s a really large honor.

I’ve learned a batch from this experience. This title specifically, location are a batch of things moreover extracurricular building nan robot. For example, location are societal media challenges we return portion in. I person had nan chance to guidelines successful beforehand of nan camera, to speak, and beryllium capable to coming myself to different countries arsenic well.

We do meetings pinch different countries earlier nan title truthful that we tin get to cognize them, get to cognize their culture. I was capable to coming my civilization to nan countries, and besides study astir theirs successful return. I deliberation that was besides 1 of nan top impacts connected me.

Saleh and DarOmar’s eventual extremity is to create a mobile robotics laboratory capable to recreation astir Palestine, reaching students who are incapable to recreation themselves.

DarOmar: Because of nan business successful Palestine, it’s excessively difficult to move nan students betwixt cities. A batch of Palestinian students cannot study robotics. They want to effort robotics, and they want to study much astir robotics. But they don’t person nan chance, because they cannot travel to Ramallah aliases cannot travel to cities.

The students cannot spell extracurricular of nan colony because location are a batch of attacks from settlers. There are a batch of checkpoints betwixt nan cities, from nan Israeli army.

Saleh: We are moving connected making a mobile robot van that has each nan 3D machines—CNC machine, robots, EV3 devices [Lego robotics kits to thief students study programming and creation concepts]. So whenever we get nan chance to spell to Nablus, to Hebron aliases immoderate different places, we tin person each of our materials and devices successful 1 spot truthful we tin stock it pinch others easy without immoderate borders aliases problems.

Shanti: When [Saleh] told maine astir this point that they wanted to do, I was very happy. I’m successful a different city—I told Sara that I’m very fresh to thief them stock robotics there. When I spot my communicative and my maturation and development, I really want to stock this pinch different people.