Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic High School’s BeaverworX, Team 2609 of FIRST Robotics, has taken off to Houston to compete in the 2023 FIRST® Robotics World Championship April 19-22, 2023.
12 of the 22 members of the team flew to Houston, to see how their fondly named robot, The Road Runner, ranks against 600 teams from all over the world.
BeaverworX provides opportunities for students from all over our district to participate in competitive events and showcase their skills in creative and challenging events. Students learn career skills in engineering, design, math, computer science and are inspired by industry professional mentors and First Robotics Canada (FRC) alumni who are dedicated in fostering an educative and meaningful atmosphere.
Mike Moore, founder and lead instructor of BeaverworX, with 14-year experience in FRC competitions noted that he can confidently say this is one of the best teams and robots he has ever had competing.
“It’s pretty amazing what we have done this year, the club has really picked it up this year,” he shared.
“Last year was our best year and this year is even better. We have been able to put more into it this year and have done a lot of preseason work to build the skills of this team.”
The success of this team is in credit to the veteran members they have had return to the team. Among those who have returned are Justina Madrid, outreach coordinator, and Aydan Boynton, programmer and operator.
“We have more organization skills and experience, and our robot is more durable,” added Boynton. “Now the team knows each other more now, we are building momentum with the skills.”
As programmer and operator, Boynton is responsible for programming the robot to translate instructions. So, when driver and team captain, Dominik Wrobel, tells the robot to move forward, to climb or to throw objects, the robot interprets the commands and responds accordingly.
After ranking 13th in the province – landing them within the top 23 who head into worlds after winning quarter finals, semifinals, placing 4th in district championships at FIRST Robotics events hosted at University of Waterloo and McMaster University - the team is confident in their robots’ capabilities heading into worlds.
“We have made the robot much more reliable,” explained Boynton. “We made it through McMaster with no significant technical issues, we had quite a bit in District Champs, but we were able to fix them which was nice. Our programming has improved over last year - its works much, much better.”
While the team flew out today, The Road Runner started its two-day highway journey venturing across North America in time for the competition to begin.
“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” said Madrid. “I am looking forward to the experience of it.”
To follow along and cheer on BeaverworX as they compete against the best teams in the world, please visit https://www.2609.ca/ or tune into the 2023 FIRST® Championship live stream https://www.firstchampionship.org/watch.