ERIN – The Erin District High School (EDHS) robotics team traveled to Etobicoke on May 5 to compete in the Skills Ontario provincial robotics competition, taking home a silver medal for its efforts.
“We’ve placed in the top 10 most years, but this is the first time we’ve earned a medal,” said EDHS teacher and robotics club coach Marc Filion.
The club, which consists of around 20 students, operates during lunch hours and is open to anyone in grades 9 to 12 interested in engineering, robotics and affiliated fields.
Members spend nine months of the year building robot prototypes and drafting ideas to prepare for the competition.
When the last robot is complete, the club votes on the four members they wish to represent them at the Skills Ontario competition, an annual event where students in skilled trades and technologies compete against each other.
The competition brings together elementary, secondary and post-secondary students and features various disciplines such as carpentry, culinary arts, robotics and more.
“We are the only school in the board that does the robotics,” said Filion.
“We are always the board’s representative at the provincial competition.”
This year, the team produced three different robots to meet the challenge criteria of the competition.
“They essentially involve things like ball collectors and projectile throwing components,” said Filion. “And then there was a component this year where they had to stack to build towers.”
Two of the robots were radio controlled, while the third was programmed to work without human assistance.
“The third one essentially had to operate without any interaction,” said Filion. “It has to be completely autonomous.”
Schools battle head to head, demonstrating their robot’s skills in a four-minute round while judges look on and deliver a score.
“Design criteria are things like speed and accuracy, durability and things like that,” Filion told the Advertiser.
Unfortunately for the team, only the gold medalists from each province move on to compete in the national competition.
However, Filion says he is confident the team will build on this year’s experience going into next year’s competition.
