Robotics team looking for help to get to Houston
Bringing a sense of excitement and few expectations with them, a small team of Templeton Secondary students has qualified for a world robotics championship.
Now they just need some kindly persons or businesses to help pay for their trip to Houston.
“We’re very excited,” Templeton Grade 11 student Nikki Cech said. “We succeeded at regionals because our robot was very good at one small element (of the contest). If it’s the same at worlds, it could end up going really well for us.”
East Vancouver’s Templeton is one of three Canadian schools to qualify for Houston, joining Team Hephaestus from North Surrey Secondary and Iris Robotics from Garibaldi Secondary in Maple Ridge.
The Templeton team has 16 students, overseen by computer science and woodworking teacher Warren Lloyd.
It’s a rookie team with a tiny budget and they didn’t know what to expect when they travelled to Victoria for the Canadian Pacific Regional tournament a couple of weeks ago.
“We walked in and saw all these robots looking nothing like ours,” Cech said. “Teams had matching jackets, matching pants. We didn’t even have matching T-shirts.”
Despite being called a regional tournament there were teams from as far away as Quebec. A team called Space Cookies, comprised of 70 girls, was from Mountain View, Calif. NASA and Google are among their many sponsors.
“A lot of teams had Plexiglas or other materials, we had plywood because that’s the material we had available,” Cech said. “We’re this small team, from east Van. There were teams from west Van, other teams had stuff we didn’t, and we came out successful.”
Teams were given a frame, components and software to write code at a January kickoff at BCIT. Judges at the regional competition called the Templeton effort the little wooden robot that could.
The driving force behind the Templeton team was student Arsh Seth, who arrived at the high school from India last fall.
“I was showing Arsh around and he said, ‘Let’s start a robot club’, ” Cech said. “He brought me in and I brought my friends in.”
They wound up with 13 boys and three girls.
At the First Robotics Competition in Houston, from April 18 to 21 at the George R. Brown Convention Centre, the B.C. schools will be up against teams from all over the United States and from Brazil, Mexico, Japan, China, Israel, Turkey, Australia and India.
The Templeton gang has set up a page at gofundme.com/temprobotics.