SCA students qualifies for Worlds robotics competition

A team of 12 students from Strathcona Christian Academy will be bringing their robotics knowhow south of the border for a massive international competition.

The For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) Tech Championship will attract around 70,000 people from across the globe to Houston, TX on April 17. The school qualified during the March 10 Alberta provincial championships.

“We are now on our way to the world competition,” Jon Courville, robotics teacher at Strathcona Christian Academy Secondary and robotics team liaison. “This is their third year in a row qualifying for the world championships, which is really exciting for our school.”

The team, called the Cyber Eagles, designed and built a robot that fit this year’s theme, Rover Ruckus, which asked teams to create a robot that can meet the simulated challenges of navigating the surface of Mars to collect resources.

“We’re all a little nervous about how things will work out,” said Bayo Alabi, Cyber Eagles member and Grade 12 student. “At the same time, we’re proud of the amount of work and time we’ve put into preparing for this competition. We’re also excited and it’s something we’ll remember for a long time.”

The students on the team are in Grades 9-12 and they will compete against other junior highs, high schools, non-school clubs and other groups of people from all over the world.

“You’re playing a team sponsored by Google or NASA and it is the next level of competition, which is definitely exciting,” explained Courville.

The teacher and liaison said this year’s theme had students develop a robot that starts on a Lunar or Mars lander, then lower itself and detach from the module. It then must retrieve mineral or materials from inside a crater by either climbing in the crater or developing a system to grab the minerals from outside.

“We had a telescopic arm that had a motor and elastic bands wrapped around two 3D printed wheels that would retrieve the minerals and pull them in and then another arm would lift the minerals up and put them inside the lunar lander,” explained Courville. “There are two different types of minerals and you have to put them in the right side of the lander so it is a competition where you want to be agile, quick, retrieve the minerals and deposit them faster than other teams and then latch your robot back onto the lander and lift it off the ground again.”

The FIRST Tech Challenge last weekend was the third round of the competition in Alberta, with the first taking place in Red Deer, the second in Calgary and the final in Edmonton. A total of 32 teams competed and when it all wraps up two teams move on.

“In the final round, our robot had some connectivity issues but the students got it working quickly and it performed quite well and they got quite a few minerals in the lander and were able to bring the robot off the ground again at the end, which is worth a lot of points,” explained Courville. “A minor setback which made for some drama, I went in with 10 fingernails and I don’t think I left with any.”

He adds they hope to work on their autonomous portion before the next competition as well and ensure they don’t run into any connectivity issues next time.

The school also won the Inspire Award because of their high caliber robotics skills.

The team will now plans to fundraise for the trip to Houston for the championships and do some minor tweaks to their robot.

Courville added that students are excited and it could be a great opportunity for them to network and put a great achievement on their resume or admissions letters.

tdosser@postmedia.com

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