UMEI Lightning Robotics competes at provincial championships

It may have only been their rookie season in the First Tech Robotics Challenge, but the UMEI Christian High School team of four from grades 10 through 12 — better known as team 19530 — excelled all the way to the Provincials based on their strong showing in the Owen Sound and Sudbury qualifiers.

“It was worth all the hours of building and designing just to see how our robot could stack up against other larger schools in the province,” said lead builder Aiden Brown.

The challenge changes each year and is run on a 12-foot by 12-foot square playing field where robots compete in alliances with other teams.

Team 19530 from UMEI Christian High School excelled in recent Robotics qualifiers in Owen Sound and Sudbury. From left are Raylene Schartner, Nathan Ribble, Aidan Brown and Micah Warkentin.

Photo submitted

This year’s event focused on the theme ‘Freight Frenzy’ where cubes, balls and ducks could be loaded onto the robot and lifted onto a multi-levelled shipping hub for points.

As well, robots could rotate a carousel, dropping rubber ducks to the floor for added points in the last 30 seconds of competition.

The UMEI team won first place for the “Motivate” award at the Owen Sound Qualifier and placed third overall out of 32 teams, propelling them into the provincials. They also won third place for the “Connect” award at the provincials, which is based on STEM advancement in their community.

“Robotics have helped us solve problems in our daily lives,” said grade 12 student Raylene Schartner, who hopes to go into a Neuroscience post-secondary program. “You never know where these skills might take our team members in the future”.

UMEI also had a second team — 19531 — nicknamed the ‘Farmers’, which just missed making the Provincials in their first rookie season.

“It is easy to see why our students are so engaged in the learning process with our hands-onlearning opportunities,” stated UMEI principal Sonya Bedal. Besides these extracurricular robotics challenges, UMEI continues to expand its robotics program into senior courses this fall, creating exciting STEM-based learning activities.