Six teams from North Delta made their high schools proud as they represented Canada at the world robotics championships last week.
Since the start of the school year, students at Seaquam and Burnsview have been designing and building robots to shoot and slide discs across the field of play to score goals
After competing in fast-paced, exciting matches at regional and provincial competitions, five Seaquam teams and one from Burnsview punched their tickets to the REC Foundation’s prestigious VEX Robotics World Championships, which was held April 25 through May 4 at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, Texas.
Four of the Seaquam teams competed at the high-school level: Team 9181N (made up of Grade 12 students Trevor Ruttan, Owen Reid, Carter Jones, and “pit crew” Barry He), Team 9181M (made up of Grade 12 students Joshua Gilevich, Michael Lange and Vincent Chung), Team 9181F (made up of Grade 11 students Sanah Tatla, Isaac Santos, Inderveer Sidhu, Jaisal Sharma and “pit crew” Jackie Chen), and Team 9181V (made up of Grade 11 students Tariq Suleman, Artemis Fleming, Thishan Mallawa Arachchi, Adesvar Malhans and Finn Windmueller).
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Team 9181N, who were selected to represent Canada in the Parade of Nations during the opening ceremony, came into the tournament ranked first in the World Skills Standings following the close of their season on March 20.
The team (dubbed “Bababooey”) came in 15th in the skills competition at the tournament, but since no one in the competition beat 9181N’s season-high score of 586 points, they are still ranked first in the world for this season. They finished the event ranked 9th out of 79 teams in their division and took home the Create Award.
The other teams also performed well at the tournament. Team 9181M (also called “Matéo”) came in 26th out of 80 teams in their division, Team 9181F (“Frenzy”) ranked 24th out of 79 and also won the Online Career Readiness Challenge, and Team 9181V (“Vroom Vroom”) finished 22nd out of 82 teams in their division.
Another group of Seaquam students — Team 9181G (“Gatorade”), made up of Grade 9 students Garvit Khanna, Jinay Patel, Kartik Kapur, and Yatharth Garg — is the first junior squad from the school to ever qualify for the tournament through the regional championships. They finished ranked 68th out of 82 teams in their division.
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Lanz Singbeil, robotics and engineering teacher at Seaquam Secondary, offered all the school’s teams a “huge congratulations” for their performance this season.
“Nearly all of them made it into the playoffs. I’m so proud of the students for their incredible passion and dedication, not just last week but this whole year,” Singbeil said in a press release. “It was also a real honour to see Team 9181N represent Canada in the Parade of Nations at the opening ceremony.”
Meanwhile, Team 98549W — aka “Burnsview Griffins,” made up of Grade 12 students Haden Williams, Lilah Ressalat, Mathew Nikolic and Michael Volovyk — finished the championship ranked 23rd out of 81 teams in their division.
“It was the Burnsview team’s first time at the VEX World Championships and they performed really well,” Norman Ma, robotics teacher at Burnsview Secondary, said in a press release.
“Overall, they ended up with seven wins and three losses, and made it into the playoffs. They also received an invite from the Dallas Cowboys to tour the AT&T Stadium, where they got to see some of the incredible engineering at the stadium.”
The VEX Robotics World Championships is the world’s largest robotics competition. More than 11,500 teams from 40 countries took part in over 750 local, regional and national competitions throughout the school year in order to secure a spot in the tournament, which featured 809 teams at the high-school level and 488 in the middle-school event.
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editor@northdeltareporter.com
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