MANITOULIN—Both the Wiikwemkoong High School (WHS) #5672 and Manitoulin Secondary School (MSS) Metal Robotics #6865 team enjoyed a lot of success at the McMaster University competition this past weekend in Hamilton. The WHS team qualified for the provincials (taking place this week in Mississauga) and won an award, while the MSS team won an award and an individual student earned awards at the McMaster University event.
“It went great, WHS qualified for the provincials,” stated Chris Mara, mentor of the WHS team. “We made it to the second round of the double elimination round of the competition with our alliance team winning the first elimination round. We also won an Imagery Award.”
“We went up against an alliance team that was the second place team in the worlds in the double elimination and we did super well,” said Mr. Mara. “We kept the points difference gap narrow. The team did really well with impressive driving and consistent on-field performance both on offence and defence. We maximized the potential of our robot.”
Mr. Mara noted that at the North Bay competition a couple of weeks ago, “we had one issue after another with our robot and would have to trouble shoot and get it fixed, then another issue would come up. But the team didn’t leave North Bay without having the robot ready for the McMaster event. And it worked out very well.”
Mr. Mara noted at the McMaster event, “we closed a huge gap after North Bay being so far down the list in the team and point standings.”
The WHS team won the Imagery Award which recognizes a team robot design which integrated art in a woodlands style robot and its panels in the competition pits based on a northern lights motif and woodlands style.”
“It was an intense, hard and wonderful competition, and I’m very happy with the results of our team,” said Yana Bauer, lead mentor for the team. “We won a couple of very important awards.”
The MSS team won the team Sustainability Award, “which celebrates and recognizes a team which has developed sustainable practices to have a positive environmental impact and achieve long-term continuity,” said Ms. Bauer. “The team members have worked so hard over the past year in the schools and community promoting change and sustainability.”
It was the MSS team that last year at the McMaster competition had pitched the idea of having this type of award. “To originally pitch the award and win it in the first year it is awarded is amazing,” said Ms. Bauer.
Criteria for this award includes a team having a clear concept or approach to building their team and operating as a cohesive unit, proactively identifying and managing risks, acquiring the assets to effectively deal with adversity as well as unexpected events. The team understands that operating in harmony with the environment is important for long-term team viability, and the team is taking steps to reduce their environmental impact and building environmental sustainability into team activities. The team must be able to explain what team sustainability practices are in place such as recruiting and training future team members, how they keep students, mentors and sponsors actively engaged by making decisions.
“We also had two students up for Deans’ List Award district championship semi-finalists,” said Ms. Bauer. Alexis McVey was selected for the award at the district event and she will now be competing and be interviewed at the provincials.
Some of the criteria for being selected for this award includes a students’ demonstrated leadership and commitment to the FIRST Core Values (discovery, innovation, impact, effectiveness at increasing awareness of FIRST in their school and community, demonstrates passion for a long-term commitment to FIRST), the students’ individual contributions to the overall success of the team, proven experience in areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and the student is a role model and can motivate and lead fellow team members.”
“Alexis is a leader on the team and is involved in all team activities, building the robot, business, financials and taking part in all outreach events,” said Ms. Bauer.
As for the robotics competition itself the MSS team had mechanical issues with their robot, and it took the team the better part of Saturday to find out what the problem was, explained Ms. Bauer. “We were still very proud of the robot performance, we had many amazing matches. She said the pit team of Alan Wilkin, Amara Wilson-Zegil and Sebastian Mara did an incredible job in figuring out what the problem was, along with the programming team of Ryan Kuntsi and Elias Titian, trying to see if it was a coding issue. “We finally discovered what was wrong and we are now looking for the gear parts needed to fix the robot.”
“We will be trying to find the parts needed and fix the robot before we go the worlds,” said Ms. Bauer. She explained that the team has decided that although it is on a waiting list to hear if it would take part in the provincials, they will not compete with their robot in the provincials but wait, get the robot fixed and be ready for the worlds taking place later this month. “We will take a small team and compete in several of the events we have qualified for.”
“Our team had also qualified for the provincials for Engineering Inspiration Award in the North Bay competition,” said Ms. Bauer. Ms. Bauer had been nominated by the team as a Woodie Flowers Award nominee which will be announced at the provincials.
As for fundraising for the world championships being held later this month in Houston, Texas, “We are short about $15,000 in our fundraising at this moment. We have been actively fundraising all year and this will continue this week.”
Mr. Mara added, “we had a couple of team members who danced at the opening ceremonies of the event. The team was super excited when it was announced we have qualified for the provincials.”
The provincials take place Wednesday-Saturday in Mississauga.
