A Burnaby robotics club is sending a record number of teams to the VEX Robotics world championships in Dallas, Texas this spring.
The Swarm – as teams from the Burnaby school district's mechatronics and robotics program at Alpha Secondary School call themselves – has had a busy season.
Every spring, VEX organizers announce a new skill-testing game, and students around the world spend the whole year designing, building and perfecting machines to play the game better than their opponents.
More than 60 students and 12 teams from the Alpha program took part this year, and coach and technology teacher James Zhuang said he's "kinda lost track" of how many tournaments the club has been to – more than 10, at least.
And the accolades have piled up.
"We've got over 20 to 25 awards from judges for our robot design, innovation and excellence," Zhuang told the NOW in an email. "Just a couple of weeks ago, one of our teams had the No. 1 skill ranking in Canada. We're definitely establishing ourselves within the robotics community in the Pacific North West."
Seven Swarm teams advanced to BC provincial championship at BCIT last weekend.
A record three of them qualified for the worlds in Texas from April 25 to May 3.
Emerging as B.C. champion and winning the judge's Innovate award was robot 502 X, designed and run by Grade 12 students Akash Karthikeyan, Alex da Palma, David Dorland, Harvest Li and Sebastian Iameo and Grade 10 student Daniel Dorland.
The team made it to the worlds two years ago but didn't advance last year.
Robot 502 W, designed and run by Grade 12 student Travis Chow and Grade 11 students Aaron Lew, Aiden Tam, Armaan Sitlu and Racine Liu, made it to Texas last year and is now going again as B.C. skills champion and judge's Excellence award winner.
Rounding out the field is robot 502 A, Grade 11 student Wellington Chan, Grade 10 students Rehan Aslam and Arek Hong, and Grade 9 student Sidd Karthik, who qualified for Texas after winning the finalist award.
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