A wave of high energy and excitement will take over the Robert Surtees Centre at Nipissing University when 27 Robotics teams from across the province converge on the city March 27-29.
The North Bay FIRST Robotics Competition will see students in grades 9 to 12 put their robot through the paces, going head to head against other teams, all the while collecting points as they move through the various challenges.
A robot can weigh up to 150 pounds.
“It is a very exciting time to see all the robots the students have built,” said event co-chair Donald McGrath.
“But it is not just about building robots. It is about marketing, and it is about fundraising. It is like running a little mini business because they have to go around to other competitions. So that is why we have to raise money. We have to do the marketing as well as build the robots to compete in all these competitions.”
The atmosphere at these competitions has been described as “electrifying.”
“It is all about teamwork and what they call ‘gracious professionalism.’ It is about working together as a team and not pounding your chest sort of deal. That model is something I use in my profession with my staff,” said McGrath who has helped judge for the past three years.
“There’s various levels and there’s various awards. All the judges have different areas of judging. It is really a professional group that gets together to make those calls.”
The judges decide which teams will advance to the provincial’s in April. From there the goal is to compete at the Worlds in May.
“This will be my fourth season, and for all three of the seasons previous, we’ve qualified for the World Championships,” said team member and grade 11 student Colton Chaput.
“We’ve made it to provincials, and on to the worlds. It has been a really cool experience going there. The atmosphere is incredible.”
The team has just two more weeks to get the robot competition ready.
“This year’s game is Infinite Recharge. It is sponsored by Star Wars, so it has a bit of a space theme to it. Essentially, you’re trying to round up balls and get them into different goals that are at different heights and different sizes which makes it a little harder to hit some of the targets. That is one way to collect points,” explained Chaput.
“There are other components, but another one of the main ones is at the end of the game you can climb onto a swing mechanism and your goal is to get as many robots on there as possible and to keep it balanced to get those extra points.”
This is Gabrielle Russo’s second year on the team.
“My first year I was the chairman’s presenter. I had to present in front of judges and present in front of people in the pits and that helped me with my public speaking skills and my time management. This year I’m now building the robot, and this has helped me with mechanical skills and working with tools and other skills like teamwork.”
The experience has helped grade 12 student Jared Kelso decide which course of study he will pursue after graduation.
“I’ve gotten to do some building, some programming, some designing, some videoing. And I’ve gotten to do public speaking. It is all life skills you will use in the future. Even though it is fun activities and I’m having a blast while doing it, it is preparing me for my future,” said Kelso.
“Next year, for my post-secondary education, I’m going into video production. I’ve been accepted into a few schools. Because of robotics, I actually discovered my passion for videoing. I have actually created my own business because of it.”
Sponsors like Redpath Canada play a major role in the success of the competition.
“At Redpath we have a lot of engineering, technical related skills. It gives these kids the opportunity to showcase some of their softer skills related to problem-solving, time management, marketing, and public speaking. They get an opportunity to work on those as a high school student,” said Scott Hayne, Vice-President of Redpath Canada Ltd.
Listing FIRST Robotics on a resume may help open doors on the job front.
“We’re getting right in around that time now when we expect to see some of these students come back from various post-secondary opportunities with master’s degrees, and Ph.D.’s. That is another opportunity for us. It has always been hard to get people back to North Bay, but this is one opportunity where we’re able to get out there, get in the community, show them what we can offer and see what some of these kids can offer too because it is pretty spectacular the things that they’re doing,” said Hayne.
Not to be outdone, FIRST Lego League junior for children 6 to 10 years old, gives youngsters the opportunity to showcase their projects in a non-competitive environment.
“They introduce coding at that level,” explained volunteer Nancy Dewer-Stenning.
“What we do because we want to push their limits a little bit, we do have judges, but everybody gets an award, just so they get the experience of being in a room with adults being asked questions about their projects.”
Thirty teams from the provincial championships will progress to the World’s in either Detroit or Texas, with each hosting 400 teams.
Should North Bay FIRST Robotics qualify, the students will compete in Detroit.
