MISSISSAUGA—The Wiikemkoong High School (WHS) #5672 Metal Robotics team did well in competition at the provincial championships, while a mentor of the Manitoulin Secondary School Metal Robotics #6865 team also won an award at the Ontario Robotics championships held this past weekend in Mississauga.
“We had qualified for the provincial robotic championships (at the McMaster University competition held last weekend),” said Chris Mara, mentor of the WHS team. “We performed really well at the provincials; we won every match in the qualifying matches that we were predicted to, according to the AI (Artificial Intelligence) bot (based on seasonal statistics of every team that had qualified for the provincials). And our team won a two versus three match which was awesome and something we wouldn’t have expected going into the competition.”
“All the members of our team performed very well, in driving the robot, our scoring was excellent (both offensively and defensively) and our team alliances were good,” said Mr. Mara.
The WHS team didn’t get selected during the championship rounds, but Mr. Mara said, “to get to the provincials was incredible enough and going against and performing well against the top teams in the world is no small accomplishment. It was an excellent season.”
MSS Robotics team mentor Yana Bauer won the Provincial Woodie Flowers Award, “alongside my friend and colleague Dan Monti, lead mentor of Lo-Ellen (High School) Robotics.”
The MSS team had nominated Ms. Bauer for the award. The Woodie Flowers Award celebrates communication in the art and science of engineering and design. Dr. William Murphy founded this prestigious award in 1996 to recognize mentors within the FIRST Robotics Competition who lead, inspire and empower using excellent communication skills.”
“It is a special award because you are nominated by your own team, and other mentors and coaches,” said Ms. Bauer. “There are a lot of incredible mentors who qualified for this award. Winning this award is more than I could ever imagine.”
Ms. Bauer explained, “Our team impressed the (provincial competition) judges with our program, but another deserving team won the Engineering Inspiration award at provincials. Alexis McVey was proud to make it this far but did not win the Provincial Dean’s award.”
As was reported in last week’s Expositor, the MSS team did not compete with their robot in the provincials, choosing to fix their robot and get it ready for the world championships which will take place starting next week in Houston, Texas. As has been previously reported, the MSS team had qualified for the 2024 world championships after having won an Impact Award at last year’s world championships, also held in Houston.
The MSS team is continuing to seek financial support for its trip to Houston and still needs to raise $15,000 to pay for all the costs involved.
