A group of four bright young minds have helped add some prestige to Lively District Secondary School.
The school's robotics team found itself in the winner's circle at the recent FIRST Robotics competition in North Bay.
This year was the culmination of years of work as the team, made up of two Grade 12 students and two Grade 11 students, have been trying their hand at robotics since they became students at LDSS.
For the younger team members, Christian Cox and Keaton Broomhead, it was the influence of the team veterans, Scott Foy and Ryley Ongarato, that got them into the robotics club in the first place.
"When we were in Grade 8, the older guys came over and did a demonstration of what they were building and working on and that was pretty much it for me," said Broomhead.
"I think we all had an interest in it from an early age, but seeing what you could actually do with it was really cool," said Cox.
The robotics competition is a six-week season that gave students from January through mid-March to design and build their robots. While the Lively boys got in late, they faired well and caught the attention of some of the top teams.
"It would have probably been beneficial to have gone into one of the earlier competitions, just to see where we were at," said Broomhead.
The competition featured 26 teams, all vying for spots at the top to pick their alliance partners for the finals. Teams' robots are required to complete a variety of tasks, including moving a gear over a specified distance, picking up and moving wiffle balls, and climbing a rope.
The Lively team was picked by the top-seeded team to join their alliance and the boys ultimately came out as the winners.
"It's really difficult to get into an alliance and to win," said Broomhead. "It was great to get picked, our goal for next year is to be one of those top teams that gets to pick our partners."
Teamwork among the individual teams is paramount, as the boys explained each team member has their own specialty, whether it be engineering, programming or the build of the robot itself.
More than functioning as individual teams however, the robotics community is tightly knit and the competition is far from cutthroat.
"There's a lot of sharing of ideas, and bouncing things off other teams," said Foy. "Everyone wants to see each other do well, and everyone is kind of scouting each other's teams along the way because you do have to make an alliance to win."
The head of the LDSS robotics program, Chris Dinnes, says he couldn't be prouder of how the boys conducted themselves and what it means for their school to have such a strong showing at the competiton.
"These guys put in a lot of long days, they were in the lab until at least 8 p.m. almost every night of the week," said Dinnes. "This result definitely adds some prestige to our school and this program."
The result is even more impressive, given that the boys had some extra distractions on their plate this year, with the possibility of a school closure looming over their heads.
"It was tough, thinking that we might not have a school or a robotics team next year," said Broomhead. "Plus with our other classes, and exams, and part-time jobs, there was a lot to juggle."
The team's elder statesmen, Foy and Ongarato, are both looking towards post-secondary paths related to the robotics field, with Foy eyeing the mechanical engineering program at Laurentian and Ongarato set to attend Cambrian College's computer systems program.
"There's a lot you can do with robotics, especially in the North and Sudbury specifically," said Dinnes. "You look at modern mining and how so much of mining equipment is becoming automated, there's a lot of career paths."
While two of the team members will be graduating, they both plan on keeping an eye on the team next year.
"We'll come back and check on them, make sure they're not screwing anything up too bad," laughed Foy. "It's on them now to teach and mentor the younger kids coming up through the school and get them involved."
