Algoma District School Board (ADSB) trustees and administrators thanked Tenaris Algoma Tubes representatives for their support, as corporate sponsors, of robotics studies for students within the Sault and area's public schools Tuesday.
Tenaris reps, along with Jonathan Budau, a Superior Heights physics teacher and robotics coordinator for the ADSB, and students who took part in robotics competitions in December and earlier this month were in attendance at Tuesday's ADSB Committee of the Whole meeting.
Students from Rosedale Public School's robotics team were on hand to give a demonstration of their winning robot for trustees.
Rosedale's Team Vextor, along with teams from White Pines Intermediate, Anna McCrea and the Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board's Holy Family school, won invitations to the VEX IQ Provincial event in St. Catharines February 20 after scoring well at Saturday's Northern Ontario VEX IQ Regional Qualifying Event, an elementary school robotics competition, held at Sault College.
The VEX Robotics World Championships will be held in Lexington, Kentucky in April.
Also on hand at Tuesday's meeting were the The BD-Boyz, a robotics team from Superior Heights, one of four high school-level robotics teams which will go on to the provincials in St. Catharines after a robotics tournament was held for secondary level students in December.
The board thanked Tenaris Algoma Tubes officials for the company's financial support to the ADSB with start-up costs, purchase of robotics kits and additional support as needed.
Other partners which have provided support are Sault College, the Professional Engineers of Ontario (Algoma Chapter) Staples and United Steelworkers Local 2724.
In other technology matters, Joe Maurice, ADSB superintendent, briefed the board on the most recent Hour of Code.
The Hour of Code, an international event, is held each year and is designed to show students around the world anyone can learn the basics of computer science, crucial knowledge in this 21st century.
In partnership with the Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre (SSMIC), ADSB students and teachers, for one hour, learned the basics of code during Computer Science Education Week (December 7 to 18).
A far cry from the computer science classes of the 1980s, the Hour of Code introduced students and teachers to computer science through activities based on the Star Wars and Frozen movies and the Minecraft game.
Maurice told the board 1,800 students within the ADSB, in 77 classes in 21 schools, took part in the 2015 Hour of Code.
That's up by more than 300 students over the 2014 Hour of Code, Maurice said.
(PHOTO: ADSB officials were treated to a demonstration of this robot by Rosedale Public School students at their board meeting, January 12, 2016. Darren Taylor/SooToday)