Problem-solving skills key for Calgary high school robotics team headed to international competition

A Calgary high school robotics team is preparing to travel to Victoria next month for an international competition.

The Sparkans First Robotics Team is made up of Grade 10 and 11 students from the Stem Innovation Academy High School.

They have six weeks to prepare for the Canadian Pacific Regional competition in Victoria on Feb. 28.

"There's thousands of robotics teams around the world," said Laura Roa, the school’s mechatronics and programming teacher.

"There's about 40 teams enrolled for Victoria from five different countries so they're from Mexico, Chinese Taipei, China, Brazil, U.S. and Canada."

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The team has a variety of tasks and responsibilities students have to deal with that are broken into two groups: blue and gold.

"You have your programming team, you have your electrical team, you have your mechanical team, you have your strategy team," she said.

"Then we have other roles so that each student participates in both (blue and gold) teams and they do outreach, financial awards, safety, so it's really a more well-encompassed company that they're running here."

Henock Seife, a Grade 10 student, is the youngest member of the team at 15 years old, and on this day is focused on the mechanical side of the project along with strategy.

"The main mechanics of our robot consists of two main subsystems: the shooter and the ground intake," he said.

"The strategy of the game involves taking game pieces and shooting them out to the goal."

Seife was passionate about robots from a young age and got involved with a number of teams growing up. He says there are many challenges to be solved when preparing for a competition.

"What I like about being on the Sparkans is that it teaches those teamwork skills and technological skills that are taught outside of the classroom that can't be taught inside of a classroom," he said.

"Those technological skills and invention and intuition (are what) employers around the world are needing every day."

In preparing for the regional competition, the Sparkans have to take into account that they need to form an alliance with two other teams for a match.

"They're learning about collaborating in teams, communication, building networks, problem solving," said Roa.

"If our alliance wins, or if we win certain awards that are available, we could potentially qualify for Houston, where the world competition is held."

Dhaya Srinivasan is in Grade 11 and was tasked with coming up with the team's strategy during a match. Each robot has to navigate obstacles while picking up game pieces that are large foam hoops.

The robot then has to shoot those pieces into the air, landing them in a goal for points.

Srinivasan has constructed a small-scale game arena because he says in a two-minute and thirty-second match, there's no time to think and he'll have to make split-second decisions.

"You get to learn a lot of skills because this is sort of like running a business," he said.

"I get to learn all about electronics, wiring stuff, mechanical side of things, now, there's also a bit of physics involved, seeing how much you can shoot the game pieces and then there's the overall design aspect, which will be very useful in the real world because in the real world, everything is about problem solving."

Denzil Mackrory is the director of STEM at the school and says the team has fundraised $16,000 to attend the regional competition.

"I'm never not surprised by these kids," he said. "Whether they're programming, mechanical, electrical, fundraising, outreach, doing the human side of it, they're surprising me every single day."

Mackrory says the team is an extracurricular activity for the students and he observes sessions and offers suggestions when needed.

"To me, that's what really I get a kick out (of) as being a teacher is like watching them grow and be good people, whilst learning skills that the future of Alberta technology is going to desperately need," he said. "These are them, this is the talent that Alberta needs."

Inayat Kang is in Grade 11 and focused on the team's outreach goals. Recently it partnered with Telus Spark to teach younger children about robotics and the team has also hosted public workshops.

"So we're using Lego kits and we invited the community, anyone who's interested, and they got to code, they got to build a robot, they got to see it working and everything," she said.

"It was just so great seeing their smiles at the end of the day."

Mackrory says one of the goals of the team is to see more teams from Alberta participate in robotics.

"Pre-COVID there were 20 teams, post-COVID there are six teams," he said.

"We need to get our Alberta regional back so we don't have to go to Victoria, so that's the goal is to use some of that money in fundraising to help kick-start other teams and get the robotics community – not back to its former glory but even better than that."

Roa says the students involved with the Spartans are committed to seeing the team succeed at the regionals.

"They love being here, really, we have to kick them out of here every day and say hey, it's time to go home to go do your studies," she said.

"So they love being here and working on the robot and working on spreading STEM and teaching younger children about STEM as well."

Learn more about the team on its website.