Lo-Ellen Robotics Team Wins Top Award at FIRST Tech Challenge Event

Over the past week, two of Lo-Ellen Park’s FIRST Technical Challenge (FTC) robotics teams participated in a remote qualifier competition against other FTC teams from across the province.  FIRST stands for “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science & Technology” and the program’s mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders and innovators by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering, and technology skills, while fostering well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership.  Both FTC teams from Lo-Ellen Park won impressive awards at the competition.

FTC 18960 EDIT “Team Cosmoknights” won the top overall award at the competition called the INSPIRE Award.  This judged award is given to the team that best embodies the ‘challenge’ of the FIRST Tech Challenge program. The team that receives this award is a strong ambassador for FIRST programs and a role model FIRST team. The Inspire Award winner is an inspiration to other teams, acting with Gracious Professionalism® both on and off the playing field. This team shares their experiences, enthusiasm and knowledge with other teams, sponsors, their community, and the judges. Working as a unit, this team will have shown success in performing the task of designing and building a robot.  Lo-Ellen team members include:

• Tyler Smith

• Eli Paibomsai

• Seth Albers

• Tristan Brett

• Madison Huntington

• Kalyani Nair

FTC 16413 EDIT “Team Vanguard” was recognized for the DESIGN Award.  This judged award recognizes design elements of the robot that are both functional and aesthetic. The Design Award is presented to teams that incorporate industrial design elements into their solution. These design elements could simplify the robot’s appearance by giving it a clean look, be decorative in nature, or otherwise express the creativity of the team. The robot should be durable, efficiently designed, and effectively address the game challenge.   Lo-Ellen team members include:

• Edward Xiong

• Tiago Ferreira

• Kush Patel

• Deep Mahida

• Annika Matusch

• Julia Silva

The two teams are a byproduct of a new EDIT (Engineering Design + Innovative Technology) course at Lo-Ellen Park.  This past fall, the FIRST Technical Challenge was integrated into the EDIT program as a new course offered at Lo-Ellen Park for Grade 10 and 11 students “TMR3M EDIT Robotics & Control Systems”.  Two of the robots created during the semester one EDIT class had the opportunity to officially compete in this year’s FTC competition called FIRST Ultimate Goal.  Students designed robots for the FTC Ultimate Goal game challenge that could manipulate wobble goals and shoot foam rings into different target areas.  The students learned about the engineering design and prototyping process while also learning about collaboration and working in teams.  Students in the class also learned how to program their robots to perform tasks autonomously using pre-programmed controls and as well as how to control their robots using a gamepad and Android app to successfully compete in FIRST Ultimate Goal.

Due to the pandemic, teams had the opportunity to share information with judges via Zoom to share their design experiences throughout this season and to highlight some of the unique programs offered at Lo-Ellen Park that complement the FIRST Robotics program at the school.  Also of note, the teams were able to complete matches from their home despite being in self-isolation during the timeframe of the competition while adhering to all public health guidelines.  Truly an impressive feat!  The Lo-Ellen Park teams are looking forward to the FIRST Technical Challenge Provincial Championships in May.

Check out a sample FIRST Ultimate Goal match here:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gFdva-xWbS3rjcWB7EIDjZmakZ_u_BRi/view?usp=sharing

Also, a special thanks to the grade 12 student mentors (Marcos Mori-Chinen, Quinn Roos, Josiah Poxleitner, Sarnai Munkhzul, Rowan Mullin Santone and LEP Mentors (Rob Gruhl, Dan Monti)

If you are interested in learning more about the teams’ journey this year, you can view their engineering portfolios through the following links.

FTC 18960 “Team Cosmoknights” – Engineering Portfolio:  https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1yKqtdUfpLukuJPmefD5_AReJs1aNptmX8lMvW2t8DU0/edit?usp=sharing

FTC 16413 “Team Vanguard” – Engineering Portfolio:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1is-WXtm8IMkMjT70OhknVrEi7Q8J251-/view?usp=sharing