CELT-X-5406 Robots Building Students

Celt-X Robotics Team 5406 competes with 3000+ teams from around the world in the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC). The team, from Bishop Ryan Catholic Secondary School, works out of the Hamilton Wentworth Catholic District School Board’s Robodrome Robotics Center in downtown Hamilton.

FIRST is a global non-profit organization whose mission is “to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders and innovators” by creating games for students to build and design robots to compete in these games. The FIRST program targets youth with four unique programs available to students in grades K-12. A new FRC game challenge is released every January and teams composed of high school students, teachers, and volunteer mentors spend hundreds of hours over six weeks to design, build and program a robot. Then students and robots compete in a fast paced game on a basketball court sized field. The game requires the students that are operating the robots to develop offensive and defensive strategies just prior to each match, then execute those strategies during the match while reacting to what the opposition is doing. This teaches the students to work as Gracious Professionals since a team you are competing against this match may be your partner the next match.

Last season, Celt-X won at the Georgian College District event, and earned awards for Engineering Inspiration, Industrial Design, Gracious Professionalism and the prestigious Judge’s Award. They qualified for the World Championships and finished in the top 2% of all FRC teams worldwide. Now in the team’s fourth year, they have just completed their design and build phase and are preparing for competition, aiming to qualify for a 4th consecutive trip to the FIRST Robotics World Championships.

Celt-X has been the driving force in the setup and tooling of the Robodrome and will continue to develop it for use by everyone in the FIRST community. They participate in many community initiatives promoting STEM throughout the city at events such as, the Hamilton Mini Maker Faire, CODEfest, HWCDSB science fair, and Scouts STEM night. They have given back to the community through coat and food drives, as well as a car wash to raise money for cystic fibrosis. They promote the values of FIRST by co-hosting one of three Canadian off-season FRC competitions - The STEMley Cup Championship (with St. Mary Catholic Secondary School) and by volunteering at the Hamilton FLL Qualifier, an event hosted by Cardinal Newman Catholic Secondary School for FIRST Lego League students in grades 4-8.

The team’s success would not be possible without the support of the HWCDSB and ArcelorMittal Dofasco as well as team sponsors like John Deere, The Heritage Green Community Trust, and more.

For more information, visit www.5406.ca and catch the action at the McMaster Competition on April 7th-8th. 2018.