Robotics club open to Catholic high school students
GUELPH – It’s a big year for robotics at the Wellington Catholic District School Board (WCDSB).
The team at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic High School has expanded to include students from all of the boards’ high schools, the board has launched a robotics course and a Lego robotics team has formed at St. Peter Catholic Elementary School in Guelph.
The new course is a technology and skilled trades class with a focus on robotics. It is the first after-school credit-based robotics course in Ontario.
Grade 9 and 10 students can take it as their mandatory tech credit and it is held after school so that industry volunteers are available to lend their expertise.
Volunteer Reli de Sosa joined teacher Laszlo Szugyi at a Jan. 12 WCDSB meeting to share a presentation about the board’s robotics program.
De Sosa, who has been involved with the club since 2014 when he was a student at Lourdes, now works in the automotive industry and just completed his professional engineers test.
Szugyi first joined the team as a Lourdes student in 2016, and is now running the program. Before becoming a teacher he worked in engineering and volunteered as a mentor for the team.
The volunteer work showed Szugyi how much he enjoyed working with students and led him to return to school for teacher’s college, he told trustees.
Through robotics, he said students gain a range of skills, including problem solving, critical thinking and leadership.
The course includes both in-person and remote e-learning instruction and is held at Lourdes on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4:30 to 7:30pm and on Saturdays from 10am to 1pm.
The Beaverworx robotics team meets from 5:30 to 8:30pm Tuesdays and Wednesdays and 10am to 4pm Saturdays.
Students taking the course are welcome to also be on the team.
Szugyi said Beaverworx is the largest it has been since it launched in 2008, with 30 to 40 students present on any given day.
They attend two qualifying events at colleges and universities across Ontario every year, with the possibility of competing in the Ontario championship and the world championship in Texas.
In 2023, the team finished first at worlds.
But if they qualify again this year, de Sosa said the team has already decided to rescind its qualification and not make the trip to Houston, “because of the cost and political situation in the U.S. right now.”
The elementary team competed at a robotics competition at the University of Waterloo last year, with Grade 12 students from Beaverworx there to guide them.
The Beaverworx team also gets involved in a range of community initiatives, including Trees for Tots, meal preparation for homeless youth and STEM presentations at elementary schools and summer camps.
De Sosa said 85% of students who compete with the robotics team pursue post secondary education in STEM fields, and Beaverworx members have gone on to work at Amazon, Linamar, Space X and Tesla.
Trustee Sebastian Dal Bo asked how Grade 7 and 8 students are informed about the robotics program, “so that they would be excited that once they finish elementary school [they can] come to our Catholic high school that offers that.”
Szugyi said the board is currently figuring out the best way to do that. And it’s trying to start Lego robotics teams at as many elementary schools as it can, but that is dependent on teachers offering to lead the teams.
“Many of our schools do have Lego robots in their makers’ space classrooms,” noted superintendent of student achievement Betty Farrell.
Szugyi has been working to show teachers that leading a robotics club doesn’t need to be scary or overwhelming – it’s mostly about guiding students to help them figure things out themselves.
Participation in the robotics program is free and no experience is necessary.
The team receives significant financial support from TD SYNNEX, Szugyi noted.
It is always looking for more volunteers and “it doesn’t have to be someone that knows anything about robotics – just have a couple hours in a month [during which] they’re looking to volunteer and make a difference,” he said.
To sign up or learn more about the program contact Szugyi at laszlo.szugyi@wellingtoncdsb.ca.
