Robotics Victory: Second Place in Canada!

By Ms. C. Annetta
I wanted to share some good news regarding the accomplishments of the Breobics students this year. The students persevered above being completely new to Robotics and the COVID restrictions this year. We competed in Provincials and FIRST Robotics invited our team to participate in the Canada Cup, which included teams from around the world such as Germany, Romania, the US, and Canada. The Canada Cup ceremony was yesterday and our team won 2nd place for the very prestigious Think Award!
Students excelled on the coding side. Our build limited us in what we could automate. This summer we plan to build a mecanum base and implement the code we wrote but had to revert. The kids learned how to automate the robot using PID controls to overcome unexpected events yet still maintain the drive path as well as maintaining shooting velocity/accuracy despite build inaccuracies and voltage decline. Judges were very impressed with the sophisticated level of the code given the limited team experience. They were also impressed with their outreach efforts, mainly where the kids facilitated coding workshops and a Robotics challenge during our 2 virtual STEAM day events this year on May 27 & 28th to several hundred gr 6 & 7 elementary students.
Here is a summary of our accomplishments:
Canada Cup - our best score 169
• Think Award - 2nd Place
• Compass Award - 3rd Place
Provincials - our best score 149
• Connect Award - 1st place
• Compass Award - 2nd Place
• Dean's List Finalists
Qualifier #2 REMOTE - our best score 143
• Connect Award - 1st place
Qualifier #1 REMOTE - our best score 134
• Motivate Award - 1st place
Scrimmage #3 REMOTE - our best score 58 (technical issues)
• Motivate Award - 2nd Place
Scrimmage #2 REMOTE - our best score 106
• Connect Award - 1st place
Scrimmage #1 - Practice event - no team awards given