Lo-Ellen Park Secondary School hosted a bunch of teenage robotics enthusiasts Saturday. They were participating in POWERPLAY, a FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Tech Challenge qualifier tournament, which brought 20 teams together from across the province.
It’s the first time this event has been held here in Sudbury.
“It’s a team approach to robot building,” said Dan Monti, the tournament’s director and a teacher at Lo-Ellen.
“The students build 18-inch cube-sized robots, and they work with collaboration, teamwork, to kind of build a robot game challenge each year. The students were required to design a robot that places miniature traffic cones onto different pipe poles. And the point values increase depending on the degree of difficulty.”
To earn points, robots must place coloured cones on various sized junctions throughout a 12-foot-square playing field. Points are allotted based on the number of cones properly positioned and the size of the junction. Teams can also earn extra points with special tasks.
Judges will interview teams and will present awards in various categories — compass, connect, control, design, innovate, inspire, motivate, and think — each with distinct criteria.
The tagline for the FIRST robotics program is “the “hardest fun you’ll ever have.”
The participating teams included seven teams from Lo-Ellen, two from Lively District Secondary School, as well as teams from North Bay, Manitoulin Island, Bruce County and the Greater Toronto Area.
Three of these teams were selected to advance to the provincial championships in April 2023, two of them Lo-Ellen teams.
Lo-Ellen EDIT Grey 20105 (which is actually an all-girls team), Pigeons 19721 (a team out of London, Ont.) and Lo-Ellen EDIT Crimson 16415 all qualified for the provincials.
Lo-Ellen EDIT Grey 20105 also won the Inspire award, a judged award given to the team that best embodies the “challenge” of the FIRST Tech Challenge program.
The winning robots alliance out of Saturday’s tournament was Dr. X Academy Eagle 21908 (from Richmond Hill) and Pigeons 19721. An alliance consists of a team of two robots paired together for elimination rounds.
David Langley, who’s a member of the Lo-Ellen EDIT White 22310 team, said his group has been working on the robot for one school period per day for three months, as well as many hours outside of school.
His team took home the Design award from Saturday’s tournament.
“Collectively, my team has probably put in well over 200 hours outside of school,” he said.
Langley, who said he’s considering a career as a mechanical engineer, said he enjoys the competitiveness of the program.
“I really like learning with my team and learning about engineering and robotics,” he said. “It's a mixture of fun and frustrating, but overall, it's an enjoyable experience, and I would do it again.”
Heidi Ulrichsen is Sudbury.com’s associate content editor. She also covers education and the arts scene.
