They didn’t move on to provincial or world competition after two meets in North Bay and Oshawa. But the 14-member robotics team from Timmins High and Vocational School did learn how to up their game.
Teacher-coach Austin Lawrence says the Grade 9 to 12 students weren’t as fast as their opponents at having their robot complete a couple tasks. They’re still proud of designing their prototype and then coding for it.
“At the beginning of the game, there was 15 seconds where the robot has to complete tasks solely off of programming,” Lawrence explains. “So students were able to code and program and upload their code to a robot and try to do those tasks on its own.”
After that, human team members take the controls.
Not knowing until January what next year’s task will be, the team will keep working on programming and building.
Teacher-coach Christian Laforge says several factors went into this year’s entry not being as polished as others.
“One of those factors being money. So we’re hoping to continue our fundraising efforts throughout the year, so that way we can have other, more specialized motors or other parts; have a more polished and complete product.”
