The 2020 VEX Robotics World Championship will include a family from the Sault in Louisville, Kentucky next month.
Team iSMAK - consisting of Shail, Ila and Kavi Giroux - punched its ticket to the big stage last weekend’s provincial championships in St. Catharines, Ont.
Their mother, Sara Giroux - who also doubles as coach for Team iSMAK - tells SooToday that her three kids didn’t think they would make it to the world championships in their first year competing together as siblings in a new VEX Robotics division.
“They certainly didn’t expect to get a spot, because this is their first year in this VRC high school division,” said Giroux. “But they’ve worked really hard - it’s every day, hours and hours and hours. They started in the summer.”
“So they’re seeing that their hard work certainly paid off. They were almost pinching themselves on Saturday when they found out they got a spot,” she continued. “It was really a surreal moment for all of us.”
Team iSMAK entered last weekend’s provincial championships ranked first out of roughly 6,000 teams in the skills challenge rankings, which is a combination of driver and programming skills scores.
The local team of siblings ended up placing fifth in the world for its division during provincials.
That division, known as VRC, is quite a bit different from VEX IQ divisions for elementary and middle-school students.
“It’s different than the elementary division, because those are built with prefabricated parts, whereas in the high school division, they’re just given these pieces of metal and the frame and the screws, and they’re just supposed to put them together,” said Giroux. “So it’s quite a transition to this new division, and they’ve really done an amazing job.”
Giroux, who got into coaching robotics teams during stints at Rosedale and F.H. Clergue, says her kids’ past experience attending the VEX Robotics World Championship could give the Giroux family a leg up on the competition, which includes representation from more than 40 countries.
“They’ve been there twice before, so they do know what it’s all about - so they’re going in with that advantage of understanding how things work,” said Giroux. “I feel like they’re less stressed this year about going. They’re more excited, so that uncertainty piece is gone.”
The 2020 VEX Robotics World Championship takes place April 22-28 at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville.