For the first time ever, a Canadian team has qualified for both the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) and the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) world championships in the same year.
About 30 students from Lo-Ellen Park Secondary School in Sudbury are now in Houston, Texas, to compete in the world championships.
“I never really saw myself that much in robotics until I came to Lo-Ellen,” said Grade 12 student Maija Nener.
FTC involves smaller robots and smaller team sizes, which student Kate Brett said makes it “easier for under-resourced teams and younger students” to get started before moving on to FRC. The FRC robots are much larger — about 120 pounds.
“It’s different every year, but the main trend is they have an object they need to pick up and place on another object, while having to compete against other teams,” explained fellow student Lane Boyuk.
The games
This year’s game is water-themed, called Reefscape. The robotics teams are awarded points based off the tasks their robot completes.
“So they pick up little pipes called coral, and they can place them on a reef,” explained Brett. Then there’s also balls on the reef called the algae and they can take those off the reef and score them in a net high up.”
It took the team about two months to design and create the robot they’re taking to Houston.
Brett said the team’s qualification for the championships is special because they earned an engineering inspiration award for teaching other schools about FTC and FRC, helping to build STEM and robotics knowledge in northern Ontario.
All three students said they plan to pursue mechanical or general engineering after graduation, crediting their school’s robotics program with sparking their interest.
“There’s no money, but there’s definitely honour and a bunch of awards we can win that will help us keep our program running in future years, and just the experience of competing on the world stage,” said Boyuk.
The championships wrap up this weekend with results expected next week.
