Sudbury plays host to FIRST robotics competition
It was quite the special weekend for high schoolers across the region who gathered in Sudbury for a special competition in robotics.
Lo-Ellen Park Secondary School played host to the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Tech Qualifier with students competing from across Sudbury, North Bay, Manitoulin Island, Bruce County and Toronto. Teams had to use their robots to complete different challenges, using pylons while amassing points.
"As soon as I started with creating robots, even the tiniest ones, I never looked back and it was so interesting to me," said Lo-Ellen student Julia Da Silva.
"I want to do engineering after high school because of robotics, because all of this has increased my interest in engineering. I always wanted to go into the medical field but after this my mind has changed and it's engineering."
"At our school, we do run a class but the hours they put in after school, it's almost like a full-time job in getting these robots to work,” said Dan Monti, teacher and tournament coordinator.
“It's amazing to see how passionate and driven the students are and it's great to work with such inspiring youth,"
Monti said the goal here is gracious professionalism – working as hard as they students can but achieving something together as the team.
He told CTV News FIRST robotics has been some of the greatest moments he's had as a teacher.
"One of the things that we do here at Lo-Ellen is we get girls interested in STEM at a young age and here we have 50 per cent of our team is female and in technical roles and that's something that we're really proud of,” said Monti.
“We actually have seven teams here and one of our teams is an all-female team of grade 10 students and they serve as mentors for our grade 7 and 8 students."
Judges interviewed teams and presented awards in various categories including compass connect, control, design, innovate, inspiring, motivate and think – each with distinct criteria.
Three teams were selected and from Sudbury and will head to the provincial championships in April 2023.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Why wasn't the suspected Chinese spy balloon shot down over Canada?
Critics say the U.S. and Canada had ample time to shoot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon as it drifted across North America. The alleged surveillance device initially approached North America near Alaska's Aleutian Islands on Jan 28. According to officials, it crossed into Canadian airspace on Jan. 30, travelling above the Northwest Territories, Alberta and Saskatchewan before re-entering the U.S. on Jan 31.

Thieves cut huge hole in Ottawa restaurant wall to get at jewelry store next door
An Ottawa restaurateur says he was shocked to find his restaurant broken into and even more surprised to discover a giant hole in the wall that led to the neighbouring jewelry store.
Rescuers scramble in Turkiye, Syria after quake kills 4,000
Rescue workers and civilians passed chunks of concrete and household goods across mountains of rubble Monday, moving tons of wreckage by hand in a desperate search for survivors trapped by a devastating earthquake.
New details emerge ahead of Trudeau-premiers' health-care meeting
As preparations are underway for the anticipated health-care 'working meeting' between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Canada's premiers on Tuesday, new details are emerging about how the much-anticipated federal-provincial gathering will unfold.
Quebec minister 'surprised' asylum seekers given free bus tickets from New York City
Quebec's immigration minister says she was 'surprised' to learn the City of New York is helping to provide free bus tickets to migrants heading north to claim asylum in Canada.
The world's deadliest earthquakes since 2000
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake shook Turkiye and Syria on Monday, killing thousands of people. Here is a list of some of the world's deadliest earthquakes since 2000.
Mendicino: foreign-agent registry would need equity lens, could be part of 'tool box'
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino says a registry to track foreign agents operating in Canada can only be implemented in lockstep with diverse communities.
Vaccine intake higher among people who knew someone who died of COVID-19: U.S. survey
A U.S. survey found that people who had a personal connection to someone who became ill or died of COVID-19 were more likely to have received at least one shot of the vaccine compared to those who didn’t have any loved ones who had been impacted by the disease.
opinion | Don Martin: Alarms going off over health-care privatization? Such an out-of-touch waste of hot political air
The chances Trudeau's health-care summit with the premiers will end with the blueprint to realistic long-term improvements are only marginally better than believing China’s balloon was simply collecting atmospheric temperatures, Don Martin writes in an exclusive column for CTVNews.ca, 'But it’s clearly time the 50-year-old dream of medicare as a Canadian birthright stopped being such a nightmare for so many patients.'