A robotics team from an elementary school in Windsor-Essex is gearing up to participate in the Skills Ontario Competition happening in Toronto.
The event, scheduled for May 4 at the Congress Centre, will feature four members from M. S. Hetherington Elementary School’s robotics group, known as the Robo Hawks, as they compete against skilled teams from around the province in the Lego Robotics category.
Over two and a half days at the Skills Ontario Competition, teams will vie for gold, silver, or bronze medals and possibly cash prizes within their category.
Team coach Chuck Stoffl mentions that this is the first time an elementary school from their area has taken part in this competition.
“The team basically competes in the First Lego League, which is a global organization that puts on different competitions. They compete in that and have done quite well over the years. But this is the first time they’ve been invited to compete in Skills Ontario, which is a completely different competition for them,” he says.
The Robo Hawks were established in 2018 and since then have earned various awards while qualifying for the FLL Provincial Championships each of the past five years.
Stoffl notes that while excitement runs high among team members, there’s also some nervousness due to how different this competition is compared to what they’re used to with First Lego League.
“They don’t know what the game is or what the competition is in terms of the track they have to run on,” he explains. “They can’t build a robot ahead of time, so they have to bring all their parts with them, then see what the challenge is, and then build their robot on-site.”
Stoffl shares that these students are all Grade 8 and have been part of the team for some time now.
“They are good builders; they are good coders, and I just have to remind them all the time that they’ve done this. They’ve built attachments; they can do all the coding. It’s just one step more that they have to do at the competition instead of showing up with their robot and all codes finished beforehand. Now they need to do it all on-site,” he adds.
M. S. Hetherington can be found at 8800 Menard Street in Windsor.
