STEM skills the focus of Vex Robotics Competition in Sudbury

STEM skills the focus of Vex Robotics Competition Cambrian College hosted its first VEX Robotics Competition for students grades 7-12 on Saturday. Alana Everson reports.

Robotics were front and centre at a competition in Greater Sudbury on Saturday.

Cambrian College hosted its first-ever VEX Robotics Competition for students in grades 7-12. Teams from across Ontario built robots and put them to the test scoring goals and were also judged on the engineering of their creations.

Grade nine student Kayley Charsley represented Sudbury’s Lockerby Composite School (LCS) and was driving her team’s robot. It took the team three months to build and Charsley said enjoyed the creative process.

“I would call it ingenuity or new ideas or better ideas process because like this doesn’t work so you try that but that doesn’t work,” she said.

“So you try this and this was better than the first one.”

Grade 12 student Xavier Vigneault also from LCS told CTV News that he plans to pursue a career in engineering and that learning about robotics and competing in Vex helps him develop critical skills he will need.

“I enjoy taking part in this competition because I get to work with robots and I get to do a lot of manual work a lot of testing. A lot of stuff with electronics which I enjoy doing,” he said.

“It’s really nice type of engineering that connects both to mechatronics and coding.”

Organizers said the VEX Robotics Competition allows students to focus on STEM fields, science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

“They are working on all sorts of problem-solving. In fact, in the moment they are making changes to how their robots operate and how they compete depending on the circumstances arise,” said Jim Allman, Cambrian College’s co-ordinator of mechanical engineering and mechatronics.

“It's about teamwork, it's about strategizing, it's about problem-solving and all these things are happening in real-time as they move from one event to the next.”

College officials said Vex Robotics competitions are held worldwide in over 50 countries. The top three teams from 18 competing at Cambrian College will move on to the provincial championship in Markham next month.