Students were tinkering, designing and coding in hopes their robot would prevail at the Catholic school board’s second annual Robotics Competition in Peterborough.
Hosted by the Peterborough Victoria Northumberland and Clarington Catholic District School Board, 16 teams from six schools gathered at St. Patrick Catholic Elementary to put their engineering and science skills to the test.
The robots were constructed out of Lego pieces and then placed in three competitions: Navigate a maze in two minutes; clash in a hockey showdown and a sumo wrestling-style clash to push the opponent out of the ring.
“I think the maze was pretty hard because the autonomous part you had to get the centimetre measurement right along with positioning the sensor,” said Grade 8 St. John Catholic Elementary student Olivia Archbond-McNevan.
Teams could rebuild and repair their creations in between competitions to improve their team’s chances.
“It’s kind of challenging when you have something wrong you have to go back to your table and try it and go back to the table and try it again and over and over,” said Ellika Moriarty, a Grade 7 student at St. Patrick.
The day’s event, which included a tech fair, stressed the importance of teamwork and problem solving while also promoting the future of technology.
“This event inspires students to work together to solve problems in real time while competing in a fun, good-spirited competition,” said St. Patrick principal Karan Leal. “Students design, program and code their own robots. They learn great STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) skills and we tend to get as many girls participating as boys, which is really promising to see.”
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