More than two dozen teams of elementary school students put their robotics skills to the test in the VEX IQ Rapid Relay competition at Boreal French Immersion Public School on Saturday.
The Algoma District School Board (ADSB) event has students from Sault Ste. Marie, Goulais River, Desbarats and Blind River working with one another in 60-second rounds, with the goal of scoring points by maneuvering their robots during the fast-paced competition.
“It has the students collecting balls off the field, and then trying to launch those balls through a scoring object,” said Mark Carlucci, robotics coordinator for Algoma District School Board. “Every match they’re randomly partnered with another school, so they have to make friends with other teams and try and work together on the field to score as many points as possible.”
In addition to the VEX IQ Rapid Relay, teams will take part in robot skills challenges as a means of showcasing their individual programming and driving abilities while striving for the highest scores. The teams will also present their engineering designs and problem-solving strategies in a number of judging sessions throughout the day.
“Building up to the event, they’re learning about some of the engineering skills and coding skills required to get that robot working,” said Carlucci. “Once they get here, all of sudden all that collaboration with other teams, working in high-pressure situations, making adjustments to how they do their gameplay, program their robot — all of those become paramount, and they really learn that innovative skill under pressure.”
Results from Saturday’s competition will be released by ADSB later this weekend.