Students from across the Okanagan take part in LEGO Robotics competition

Students from all across the district gathered at UBCO this weekend to compete in the FIRST LEGO League Robotics competition, where students must build and program a robot that can complete a number of tasks.

Roughly 70 students from 13 different schools took part in the competition on Saturday.

“The teams here are using LEGO Robotics kits, and the robots in order to complete their missions in the robot game, they have to be autonomous, so in other words, students have to program the robot ahead of time to basically go out and try to complete as many missions as they can in two and a half minutes,” said Tobias Blaskovitz, the tournament director.

“And so the teams have prepared and today is all about showcasing their learning. They’re here to share their innovation project, they’re here to show their robot design, they’re here to show their core values and they’re here to participate in a robot game.”

Teammates Gracyn and Katherine of Canyon Falls Middle School returned to the competition for a second and third time to test their skills against some of the Okanagan's best LEGO robot programmers.

“We put a lot of work into this. They basically have a brain and then you build off of that brain. It’s really cool to use. Sometimes they can be awesome to work with, sometimes they can be a pain. Sometimes you have great runs and then you’re feeling awesome, and then sometimes they just don’t go how you wanted," said Gracyn.

Starting the project in October, teams have had a number of months to prepare their robot for league play.

“The yellow big block is the brain under the wheels, and then a lot of people have extra stuff, but me and Gracyn here, we just put a barrier and an arm (on the robot), which does most of the work," added Katherine.

Between the ages of nine and 14, the program aims to teach these kids a variety of skills, giving them complete control of how they want to go about the competition.

“Problem solving, critical thinking, those are huge on the list... This is supposed to be very kid driven, so the kids come up with the strategy, they come up with the robot design, they choose which missions they think they can accomplish, and how they’re going to approach the robot game, how they’re going to approach the innovation project," said Blaskovitz.

A number of awards were handed out at the end of the competition, with some of the top teams getting an invite to provincials, which takes place in Vancouver later this spring.