In-person robotics competition returns to Windsor

The robot games have begun — again.

For the first time in three years, the Windsor-Essex Great Lakes District Competition saw high school students from across Ontario put their robots to the test – as 17 teams battled it out Saturday at the St. Denis Centre to showcase their design and engineering skills.

It marks the first district competition for robotics students in Windsor-Essex since 2019. Competitions in 2020 and 2021 were shut down due to COVID-19.

That means for a student who joined their school's robotics team after Grade 9, this would be their only district competition before high school graduation.

"I've wanted to join robotics for about three years now. But in Grade 10, I didn't because everything was getting shut down around springtime," said Sandwich Secondary student Alma Piche.

"In grade 11, we had no extracurriculars and I was online because of COVID. So I'm really glad I got to be here this year."

Piche said she feels "lucky" considering there are so many students who didn't get the opportunity to attend an in-person robotics competition in their final year of high school if they graduated in 2020 or 2021.

"I'm definitely grateful things worked out for me," said Piche, adding her favourite part of the event was meeting students from other school's teams.

For Upkar Chana, a 12th-grade student at Massey Secondary School who assists with design and controls for his team's robot, he first wanted to join robotics because of his older brother who had been part of the team years ago.

During Saturday's competition, Chana said he's excited to follow in his brother's footsteps — even if it's happening a few years later than he thought.

"When COVID hit, I did not think I'd be able to do robotics. But yeah, being able to do it this year was a huge relief."

This year's district competition saw teams participate in 3-on-3 matches, shooting large balls into a goal in the centre of the field. Near the end of the match, robots attempt to hook on to monkey bars.

The higher they go, the more points they get.

"It's so cool to see the creativity of these teams come out in action on the fields," said Jaeleen Koscielski, volunteer for FIRST Robotics Canada and alumni of Sabre Bytes 772, adding she's been "waiting a long time" for Saturday's return to in-person competition.

"For a lot of these students, it's their first event and that is so exciting because we're getting to set all their excited faces."