Sudbury robotics team makes Canadian history with double qualification for world championships

CBC News

· Posted: Apr 15, 2025 3:53 PM EDT | Last Updated: 7 minutes ago

For the archetypal clip ever, a Canadian squad has qualified for some the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) and the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) satellite championships in the aforesaid year.

About 30 students from Lo-Ellen Park Secondary School successful Sudbury are present successful Houston, Texas, to vie successful the satellite championships.

"I ne'er truly saw myself that overmuch successful robotics until I came to Lo-Ellen," said Grade 12 pupil Maija Nener. 

FTC involves smaller robots and smaller squad sizes, which student Kate Brett said makes it "easier for under-resourced teams and younger students" to get started earlier moving connected to FRC. The FRC robots are overmuch larger — astir 120 pounds.

"It's antithetic each year, but the main inclination is they person an entity they request to prime up and spot connected different object, portion having to vie against different teams," explained chap pupil Lane Boyuk.

The games

This year's crippled is water-themed, called Reefscape. The robotics teams are awarded points based disconnected the tasks their robot completes. 

"So they prime up small pipes called coral, and they tin spot them connected a reef," explained Brett. Then there's besides balls connected the reef called the algae and they tin instrumentality those disconnected the reef and people them in a nett precocious up."

It took the squad astir two months to plan and make the robot they're taking to Houston. 

Brett said the team's qualification for the championships is peculiar due to the fact that they earned an engineering inspiration grant for teaching different schools astir FTC and FRC, helping to physique STEM and robotics cognition successful bluish Ontario.

All 3 students said they program to prosecute mechanical oregon wide engineering aft graduation, crediting their school's robotics programme with sparking their interest.

"There's nary money, but there's decidedly honour and a clump of awards we tin triumph that volition assistance america support our programme moving successful aboriginal years, and conscionable the acquisition of competing connected the satellite stage," said Boyuk.

The championships wrapper up this play with results expected adjacent week.