Programs
Robotics Team Bound for Worlds
Throughout the competitive robotics season, Grade 12 student Kyan M. has been wearing a hand-me-down hoodie from the 2017 VEX Robotics Championships, the last such tournament that Shawnigan attended.
Now he can get a hoodie of his own.
Kyan and his teammates — Tye E., Aniela H. and Ben P. — have qualified for the 2023 VEX Robotics World Championships by winning the Excellence Award at the Vancouver Island Robotics Championship hosted by Brentwood College School last weekend. This is the first time Shawnigan has qualified for Worlds since 2020, and the first time the School will attend the event since 2017, as the 2020 event was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Excellence Award goes to the best robot in the tournament as determined by the judges, based on several criteria, including presentations to judges, data collected, and performance. The team of Kyan, Tye, Aniela and Ben (AKA 6264A) also had an excellent showing in the competitive portion of the Island Championship, winning all their round-robin matches before they were knocked out in the quarter-finals.
“Winning the Excellence Award wasn’t our ‘A’ plan,” Tye related. “Our ‘A’ plan was to win the tournament. But Excellence might be better.”
All four are Grade 12 students, and Kyan and Tye are both in their fifth year in the robotics program, although their connection to the program goes back even farther than that, as they spent time on campus as children of staff members.
“Kyan and Tye have been with us since Grade 7,” instructor Dr. Ed Taylor noted. “They used to hang out in the Robotics Lab when they were kids.”
The team of Kyan, Tye, Aniela and Ben has been together for two years now. Along with other teams from the robotics program, they competed at seven tournaments on Vancouver Island this year, including the season-opener at Shawnigan, which they won. Over the course of the year, they collected six total awards, on top of three they won last year.
“I think we’re crushing it,” Tye said. “We all have different roles. One reason we got the Excellence Award is because we’ve got good team dynamics.”
Ben was grateful for the feedback his team got from the judges on all aspects of the competition — most of it positive, of course.
“It was really cool to hear what they had to say,” he said. “It gives us confidence going into Worlds. We’re looking forward to going.”
The World Championships will take place in Dallas, Texas on April 25-27. The Shawnigan quartet will be among 500 teams from around the world, narrowed down from about 10,000 participating schools. Shawnigan’s Head of Innovation Mr. Paul Doig calls it a “full geekdom of robots.”
“It’s truly a global event,” he said.
Tye and his teammates are going into the massive event with full confidence, although they acknowledge they are competing against a huge field.
“We want to win, but there is a sense of realism,” he said. “We can’t bank on winning, but I think we are a strong team; I wouldn’t bet against us.”
Go Robots!
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Shawnigan Lake School is an independent co-educational boarding school for ages 13 –18 on Canada’s beautiful West Coast. Our diverse, interdisciplinary and innovative programming helps shape the next generation of global leaders.
