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.