With the success of Timmins High and Vocational School’s robotics team, student interest in the field is growing.
The school’s Team 4704 – Northern Lights Robotics were in Waterloo March 22 and 23 for the FIRST Robotics regional competition.
“After 12 qualifying matches, the team was ranked 12th out of 35 teams. The team was selected to be in an alliance with two other teams for the championship rounds. They made quarterfinals but ultimately lost to their opposing alliance team in a best two-of-three competition,” said principal Greg Vincze.
Before hitting the road for the competition, veteran Emerson Arnold told TimminsToday that the team’s entry is the school’s “best robot ever”.
Because it can pick up things from the ground and hold it like a bucket, he said their robot this year is called the Shov-Ket.
For the FIRST Robotics events, teams were sent a video in January showing what their robots would have to do at the competition. Then they had about six weeks to design and build a device.
This year, the robots had to move crates and stack them on a scoring platform.
The first time the school put Shov-Ket to the test was in Oshawa, where they earned their best seeding ever at an event.
“As a result of the success of this team, Timmins High has started running robotics classes along with the robotics club where students are able to build and compete with one another as they learn to collaborate, design, manufacture, program and test their robots on a smaller scale from the FIRST Robotics Competition,” said Vincze.
