Young techies in Woolwich and Wellesley showed off their knowledge at the Waterloo Region Technological Skills Competition last week, bringing home medals in Lego Robotics and Video Editing.
![Jacob Bouzane, Joseph Ditner and Braeden Hof took home gold in Lego Robotics at the Waterloo Regional Technological Skills Competition on Feb. 27.[Whitney Neilson / The Observer]](https://mk0observerb3irxmpnb.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Post_Skills.jpg)
Teacher Cheryl Elliot-Fraser says they start the Lego Robotics club as early as Grade 4 and the intermediates teach the juniors. They have to build a robot and then program it to do different tasks.
โWe practice using different styles of tracks and using different types of arms,โ Elliot-Fraser said. โPrior to that they went around to every classroom and demonstrated it, just to get other students interested. These guys have really taken a leadership role in the sense that theyโre teaching other students in the school also how to build robots. Theyโve been working with our junior teams too.โ
They first work with the students and teach them how to program it so it goes around a track and then they start using more sophisticated tracks.
โThese guys went on their PA day,โ Elliot-Fraser said. โSo all the students showed up that day and they ended up having, in total, at least 200.โ
More than 650 students in total competed from both school boards.
At the junior level teams can compete in Lego, where they build things out of Lego, Lego Robotics, and then Design and Build. Intermediate teams can compete in those categories plus Construction and Video Editing.
โWe havenโt done video editing here but weโre hoping to start it next year,โ Elliot-Fraser said.
Braeden Hof, Jacob Bouzane, and Joseph Ditner were the winning team.
โThe first step was to create our robot and then we had to do three challenges,โ Hof said. โThe first challenge was we had to create a robot arm to launch a ball into a basketball net.โ
Bouzane added, โAnd we had three tries. If you shoot from the middle of the little platform and you get it into the net with the arm then itโs 10 points. We got it perfect all three times, so that was 30 points that we got.โ
Ditner said if they wouldnโt have made it from there they would have had to shoot from closer for five points, or even closer for three points.
The second competition was to create an arm to shoot a hockey puck into a net.
โItโs the same as the basketball,โ Bouzane explained. โIf you shoot from the middle of the platform you get 10 points, but you only get one try. So we got only 10 points from there.โ
The third competition was to make a program so the robot could maneouvre a maze labyrinth. There was green tape around the edge of the track and if the robot touched it you had five seconds added to your time. The goal was to get through it as fast as possible.
โOn the maze that we had to go through our robot just before it reached the end, it got stuck on a fence,โ Bouzane said. โWe did so well on the other two that we still beat everybody else.โ
In preparation for the competition the team met and practiced making their robot go around different tracks and built different arms to see the best way to complete the basketball and hockey challenges.
โWe all thought that robotics would be fun so we all signed up for the very first year,โ Hof said.
Wellesley Public Schoolโs intermediate team won third in Lego Robotics and first in Video Editing for the Waterloo Regional District School Board.
Timothy Zwart, Liam Robertson, Sarah Rath, and Cameron Ramer made up the Lego Robotics team and Jacquiline Bender and Noelle Marshall were the Video and Editing team.
They said they practiced nearly every day building and programming the robot.
โWe tried and tried and tried and tried and it didnโt work, and we tried again and it worked,โ Zwart said.
Robertson added, โIt was like a guess and check. Weโd guess and check until we got it right.โ
He said working as a team was sometimes frustrating, but then it felt good when theyโd figure out a solution.
โWe unfortunately didnโt score any points in hockey, and the maze,โ Robertson said.
Rath finished, โWe ran over a tree in the maze.โ
They split the work with two of them building and the other two programming the robot.
Bender and Marshallโs video that took top honors was an episode about bullying that could be continued in the future, like a saga.
โIt was anti-bullying week last week, so we just got that inspiration from a whole bunch of stories we had heard over the week and decided it would be a good topic,โ Bender said.
They were judged on creativity, how interesting it was, their shots, and how the shots went together.
โWe had to learn how to use iMovie and I had never used that before, but luckily Noelle has so that really helped. And she knew how to use the camera,โ Bender said.
Theyโre moving on to provincials on May 4 because of their first place win. Theyโll be given a new task the day of to make a video.
โItโs fun. You should do it,โ Bender said.
Teacher Joe Donofrio said their video was judged on content as well as the technical aspects. The provincials will be held at RIM Park in Waterloo.
โItโs a really educational pastime. I think weโre lucky to have kids we can learn so much from here at Wellesley,โ Donofrio said.
Teacher Jacalyn Beck said they were responsible for shooting, editing, adding music and titles to the video. Theyโll get to see last yearโs video to have an idea of the complexity of what the judges are looking for.