On March 24 and 25, the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) Skills Ontario LEGO Robotics Qualifier was held at the Catholic Education Centre, where student teams from across the board came together to compete, collaborate, and showcase their STEM skills. This year’s event included 6 Junior teams and 10 Intermediate teams representing schools from across TCDSB.
Throughout the competition, students worked through a series of robotics challenges that required problem-solving, building, coding, testing, and iterating. Teams also took part in a judging interview, where they explained their robot design, coding, strategies, and decision-making process before completing their timed match.
In the Junior Division, for Grades 4 to 6, St. Bonaventure Catholic School placed third, St. Brendan Catholic School placed second, and St. Gabriel Lalemant Catholic School earned first place. In the Intermediate Division, for Grades 7 to 8, St. Louis Gifted Centre placed third, Transfiguration of Our Lord placed second, and St. Gabriel Lalemant earned first place. The first-place teams advanced to represent Team TCDSB at the Skills Ontario Provincial Championship, which took place on Monday, May 4, at the Toronto Congress Centre.
At the Provincial Championship, Team TCDSB, represented by St. Gabriel Lalemant, competed against teams from 30 other school boards across Ontario. Our Junior team made TCDSB history by earning third place overall in Ontario, becoming the first TCDSB Junior team to place in the LEGO Robotics category at the Provincial Championship.
A special thank you goes to Caution Tape Robotics for sponsoring the Qualifier event by providing 3D printing for the game elements and additional materials that helped the competition run smoothly. Thank you as well to all teacher coaches, parents, and school communities for their support throughout a very successful robotics season.
Congratulations to all participating students for their hard work, perseverance, teamwork, and outstanding representation of TCDSB.
