Robotics helps students learn, bond
Contest a gateway to STEM careers
Students from high schools across Calgary and region got out their tool boxes Saturday morning to start building bots to compete in the FIRST robotics championships.
The two teams of Calgary high schoolers involved with the Alberta Tech Alliance Association (ATAA) started work on robots that they hope will earn them a spot in the championship competition in Houston, Texas, in April. It’s an experience shaping many students’ aspirations.
“At first I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but once I got back into a bit of this engineering, I thought, ‘I really want to build things,’” said Grade 12 Winston Churchill High School student Zoof Abdurashidov, whose team lost to the eventual champion last year.
“It’s my life now.”
According to parent organizers, about 68 per cent of program alumni have gone on to study a STEM — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — field in post-secondary.
The building process requires students to develop and put to use skills including electrical engineering, programming and mechanics. Most students, including Webber Academy 10th grader Avery Schilling, get a chance to learn a wide swath of skills while also becoming part of a community.
“This really teaches community,” said Schilling, who is the team’s safety captain and also hopes to do mechanical work. “It’s cool you get to meet a lot of people and that it becomes kind of like a nerd party.”
Each competition, students are given new specifications for what their robots will need to do. This year, with some guidance from parent and teacher mentors, the students are tasked with designing and constructing robots to compete in a complex game that’s part soccer, part basketball and part Battlebots.
According to organizers and participants, the program closely resembles varsity sports — there’s intense competition, kinship among teammates and the chance to travel and meet students from other parts of the country and world.
“The students really bond on this trip because they really have to work together,” said ATAA public relations manager Patric Kornak. “A lot of these students might not be athletic, so they might not get on those teams. This gives students who are interested in science and mathematics a chance to be part of a team and learn those skills.”
More than 3,700 teams from 27 countries are competing in this year’s event.