The Robotics Team at St.Mary's High School returned from Durham College recently as provincial champions.
The team took part in Ontario's first-ever First Tech Challenge Provincial Championship.
The teams use a special kit to build and program a robot that competes in various challenges and games to earn points.
Jacob Oussoren, a Grade 12 student and the Robotics Team Leader for St.Mary's explains how they set this up.
“Basically we take two Andriod phones and sync them through wifi and an app provided by the competition, then one gets connected to an Xbox controller and the other to the robot,” Oussoren says.
He says that the team originally came in third during the opening challenges but pulled their way to first place during the finals.
Oussoren explains that around four new competition level challenges and games are announced every year and it's up to the teams to build robots and develop strategies to excel in each challenge.
For Oussoren, it's this challenge that keeps him passionate about robotics
“When I was a kid I loved playing with lego and now I get to do that on a bigger level,” Oussoren says. “If I was playing baseball I would always play the same game, this way I get to play a new game every year.”
Currently, the St.Mary's Robotics Team is a six week build period for the next competition, the First Robotics Competition.
The team will have to build a robot that can shoot dodgeballs into a goal that will trigger a point mechanism, there is also a component where the robot will have to hang from a swinging bar.
Oussoren says that the support from the St.Mary's Student Council and the School Board has been instrumental in the success of the team.