Latinobotics by Tec Gear 6106

This project is from the robotics team of the PrepaTec Irapuato, TecGear 6106, which is part of FIRST, a community where students from different parts of the world are interested in learn and spread the passion of robotics. However, a thing we have noticed about, is the considerable delay in Latin America compared to the rest of the world, affecting our development and economy. So we focus on a solution in the area of science. 

Latinobotics joins groups of young Americans passionate about science, technology and more than anything robotics. Through a 24/7 network of groups involved. To boost creativity by sharing innovative ideas and solving obstacles together. Forge a community to grow this part of America, doing projects and solving problems.

It mainly impact young people, our objectives, is to change the cultural mindset of those who take little account of the importance of science and technology.

What opened our eyes to the problem we are facing, has been understanding our current situation and that if we don't do something now it will be more difficult in the future, in addition to having colleagues and friends of Latino robotics teams with great potential, that due to the lack of interest in our countries they are not able to develop their ideas. Latin Americans are brilliant minds and just as innovative as the rest of the world. Unfortunately, the main cause of this problem is that they often do not find a local environment that facilitates their efforts; and over time we observe that this situation affects the following way:

• The lack of development of science, technology and unity in Latin America.

• Lack of opportunities and knowledge to grow.

• There are few resources, interest and education.

None of the Latin American countries detinates more than 1% of their GDP to the Research and Development (R&D). Latin America is, along with Africa, the region in the world that invests the least in R&D.

According to a UNESCO study, Latin American countries represent approximately 2% of global R&D, leaving it far behind North America (39%), Europe (31%) and Asia (26%).

It has to do with the mentality of the person who created it, after having studied at his young age and traveled in Florence, New York, Berno and Calgary, he realized the realities and the contrasts that exist between First World and Third World countries that exist in Latin America; He learned the reason of success that only few Latinos have achieved worldwide, the reason that clearly distinguishes the successful Latinos from the rest of the world, and is nothing more and nothing less than the passion with which they do the things. Latinobotics was created by a person whose purpose was to give this underdeveloped sector of the planet (Latin America) the opportunity to encourage them to follow their passion (focusing on robotics, science and technology).

Latinobotics, objective is to generate a new and innovative model for education, where children learn; and at the same time culturally we make a change of mentality for the future, maintaining two visions of cultural change:

1. That people realize the advantages of science and technology, maintaining a constant cycle and increasing interest, culturally changing the mindset regarding the importance of science in the development of societies in Latin America and the Caribbean.

2. Demonstrate gender equality, promoting women.

Latinobotics is a community, formed as follows:

• Find and share innovative solutions together, to improve our communities through robotics and technology, giving the opportunity to generate projects; We will create a mobile platform, where Latino groups exchange their solutions to common problems, projects, knowledge and ideas. A network where everyone can contribute with complete information, increasing learning and promoting science and technology.

• A monetary fund; in which we all participate and get sponsors, events and fundraising pages to create science and technology groups, and to push for the growth of existing ones, expanding robotics. In addition, to support the development of projects generated by the members of this community, as well as promoting teams with limited resources to obtain greater opportunities for growth.

In other words, Latinobotics look for a job through funds, projects, trips, new equipment and warehouse.

In addition to the use of technologies to generate the platform and video calls to maintain communication, the idea is that they can be used to promote projects involving science, technology and robotics.

What makes Latinobotics innovative, is the vision of making a change in short and long terms, in addition to not only trying to impact the area of robotics, science and technology, but also wanting to generate a total renewal in the mentality and future Latin American culture. By changing the perspective of Latin Americans and the world towards Latin America and the Caribbean, so that they can transcend in a way never seen before.

We want to awake the passion of others for robotics, science and technology. We know that Latin America has a lot of potential to offer. So we will change the perspective that we have regarding Latin America, it will unite this region more and boost its growth.

The problem to which we focus, affects more than anything passionate young people in these areas, who want to exploit their talents to the fullest, and brilliant minds with innovations that will change the world; but that due to the situation, they do not have adequate resources, opportunities or support.

On the other hand, people with a mentality that believes little in science are also affected in the delay on technological development of Latin America. By inhibiting the development, growth and education of this area.

The mentality that prevails in Latin America regarding the lack of trust and credibility that they give to the sciences, as well as the intellectual property rights, that we remember are the essence of innovation, has caught our attention. Countries that do not do a good job of protecting their intellectual property cannot compete well internationally, stop generating great opportunities for society. Unfortunately, Latin America and the Caribbean are affected in this regard, to give us an idea, the 2018 World Intellectual Property Index places seven of nine Latin American countries in the second half of the ranking.

Now we have planned to start by building a brotherly relationship with the Strike robotics team from Brazil, which participates in a competition called FIRST Global, similar to ours. We chose this team because it has a developed vision and a lot of potential, so that during our first year we plan to impact First teams, starting with video calls and collaborating in the creation of the virtual platform, the fund and innovative projects, generating a cultural and thought union.

After that, we will gradually open our perspective and stop looking only for teams from our league, we will invite groups of young people with a love for science and technology who do not have the necessary resources to exploit their great talents.

During our first year we plan to have established contact with this team and with other FIRST league teams that have potential, but not the resources. We will invite you to be part of the platform, which we are going to develop at the same time; and we'll start building the fund in both money and kind through sponsorships and so on.

In five years, we plan to have extended the community throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, and we will grow our vision by looking for youth groups that participate in certain science and technology activities or competitions (mostly robotics). We will have made great use of the platform and we will also have shared and promoted ideas for innovative projects, solving problems on the continent. It should be noted that once the Latinobotics network is established, we will seek to unite Mexico. Throughout this period, we will change lives and mindsets.

We know that Latinobotics is a very big project, with a great vision and changes both in the short and long term. For this reason, we are aware of the barriers that we may face as difficulties in obtaining the fund, or perhaps in programming the platform, as well as working with very distant teams. However, that is one of our objectives, to create a robotics community that unites Latin America and the Caribbean. So we must keep planning well organized and start from the simplest to gradually increase our vision.

We want to give the opportunity for people to meet, spread and develop this Latin mentality that so distinguishes them. We seek to exploit to the maximum the great talents that we know Latin America has so that it contributes to the development and advancement of the American continent and therefore of the world.

Protect the intellectual property of Latin America, by joining and finally creating this community that we have long sought in robotics, science and technology, called Latinobotics.

Previously we had already started with Latinobotics, giving a focus only to the league, community and competition of which we are a part of which is FIRST, the idea arose when we realized this problem of lag within the league towards Latino teams; And that's how Latinobotics was born and the dream of building a Latin American robotic community. Once created, we decided to establish contact with some robotics teams from Latin America that proved to be committed and have great potential; and we build a strong bond with them by promoting communication through a series of video calls. After that, we continued to generate a platform similar to the one already mentioned where all kinds of information, manuals, tutorials, etc., that each team involved could contribute to make this a more complete medium were included.

We are a group of 34 people, but the one's who work specifically on this, are 8.

We are the right team, because as motivation for us and for the project, with Latinobotics we have managed to win the two most important awards within the FIRST competitions, which were the Chairman’s Award in Canada, and the Engineering Inspiration Award in Mexico. 

Today, with time and accumulated experience, we decided to change the focus and instead of doing it solely within the FIRST league team community, looking for groups of boys passionate about science and robotics, forging our own community, and With the mutual support and teamwork, create talented people, destined for success. Young dreamers and leaders in science and technology innovation. In addition to driving the growth of science and robotics in Latin America and the world, we have a vision for the future for Latinobotics, which consists of a change in the cultural mindset.

We are currently partnered with the Rotary Group of our state, MakerMex and LEAR Coorporation.

There's no such a business model, as long as this project has non profit purpose, because our main work is to incentive youth groups of robotics across Latin America. In order to keep growing, we expect to get much more sponsors and investors when the project begin to give results. Even though, we pursue the Latinobotics community to design projects that may be profitable and accessible to their communities, so they can inclusively start raising funds to keep developing and learning about technology. In this scenario the latin society will be highly impacted.

To fund our project, we attempt to keep applying to grants and looking for donations or sponsorships. Then to sustain the activities of each group, they’ll have to create projects from which they can raise their own money in order to be sustainable and keep growing in their communities.

It would help us to positionate more our project which is an obstacle here in Mexico and Latin America, because there is no interest in the growth of science and technology. Also, we can get related with some enterprises and organizations interested in our solution. Furthermore, it can give more trust to future potential sponsors, partners, teams and funding projects. Finally, the financial support will give us to take a big step through Latin America and to start working in the change we want to see.

With organizations interested in solving social problems and STEM development. We will like to partner with them to reach more communities in Latin America, it would be helpful to collaborate with STEM companies.