WIIKWEMKOONG—Two Wiikwemkoong High School (WHS) robotics teams formed an historic, first-ever all-Anishinaabe robot alliance in the championships held in Sudbury during the first weekend of December as part of the FIRST Technical Challenge competition at Lo-Ellen High School.
“It was a super exciting weekend,” stated Chris Mara, coach of the WHS team. “WHS fielded three robotics teams at the FIRST Technical Challenge, with all teams finishing solidly in the top 10 (two teams finished fourth and fifth).”
“This was the first time there was an all-Anishinaabe robot alliance in the Sudbury championship,” said Mr. Mara. “One of the teams was an alliance captain and chose another (WHS) team in the champions and semi-finals.”
Two of the Wiikwemkoong teams made it to finals as an historic all-Anishinaabe robot alliance. The alliance won the semi-finals. In the final championship round, they squared off against the best Lo-Ellen and Toronto teams. “Lo-Ellen won the first match and the Wiikwemkoong Alliance won the second,” said Mr. Mara. “The third game was again a super tight match and (WHS) only lost by a total of four points. They did phenomenal.”
The WHS teams comprised of Jasmine Staruck, captain of the alliance, Blaine Naokwegijig, Brianna Mishibinijima, Zander Shawongonabe and Tristan Wemigwans,” said Mr. Mara. “Jasmine was a team of one, and she soloed to the championship match. She won the (tournament) Judges’ Award for her presentation and performance.”
Mr. Mara explained with FTC, “A smaller scale model is used than in FRC. The focus is on the technical and engineering challenge. Students had to analyze the game, develop strategy, design, build and code a robot. The robot had to perform both autonomously and teleoperated. In addition, teams had to develop an engineering portfolio of their project, which they had to present to panels of industry and business leaders.”
“This is the second year that Wiikwemkoong High School has competed at FTC. Assiginack had entered a community team the year before,” said Mr. Mara. WHS was “very much a rookie team last year, although Jasmine (Staruck) had been on the LEGO team before COVID.”
Mr. Mara added that the FTC team will next compete in January, likely competing virtually in a competition.
