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Parkside Collegiate Institute students Tristan Stover, left, and Siana Shemshedini, right, hold up their division winner poster with teacher Andrew Savoy. The team, called the Thunderstamps, placed second in the finals at the FIRST Robotics provincial championships and will move on to the world championships next week. (LAURA BROADLEY, Times-Journal)

Two St. Thomas teams have risen to the challenge of building a robot from the ground up.

Parkside Collegiate Institute and St. Joseph’s robotics teams are heading to the FIRST Robotics world championship in Detroit next week after competing in the provincial championship earlier this month in Mississauga.

Parkside’s team, called the Thunderstamps, came in second place at the provincial competition and won their division. The team is ranked 14th overall in the province.

Teacher Andrew Savoy started the robotics club at Parkside after learning about it when he worked at another school.

The Parkside team had six weeks to build a robot capable of performing tasks set by competition organizers.

“We have to build a robot that will accomplish those tasks and play in the competition in a three -robot versus three-robot setting,” Savoy said.

Students on the team learned how to design and build a robot with help from experienced mentors.

Building a robot from scratch does come with a hefty price tag so a big part of the team’s job is to raise funds.

“The robots are programmed and built to do different things,” said co-captain Tristan Stover, who’s in Grade 11.

The robots are required to perform different tasks to score points during a competition.

At this point there isn’t much the team can do with its robots, so the focus is on organizing the trip and fundraising.

“Honestly, robots wasn’t my cup of tea when I came to high school in Grade 9,” said co-captain Siana Shemshedini who’s in Grade 11. “Then Mr. Savoy was my teacher and he started talking about robotics and it seemed kind of cool.”

Shemshedini wants to encourage other students to get involved in the robotics club because there’s always a job to do that plays to people’s strengths.

“You can use your skills to our advantage,” she said.

St. Joe’s team, called Renaissance Robotics, came in eighth place at provincials and received the Chairman’s Award, which is given to a team that models the goals of FIRST Robotics. Renaissance Robotics is ranked 18th overall in Ontario.

The top 25 teams in the Ontario division move onto the world competition that will be held from April 24 to 27.

lbroadley@postmedia.com

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