Hoya Robotics takes silver in first competition of the year – their best showing yet

It came down to the final seconds of the final match at Hoya Robotics’ first competition of the year. In an exciting final round, two, three-team alliances – the Hoyas were part of one of them – traded wins in the first two matches. The third and final match was so close in score that a single penalty determined the winner, tipping the alliance that the Hoyas were part of into second place.

“I don’t think they’ve had an event where the finals were so close score-wise. We gave them a run for their money,” said teacher and team mentor Ian McTavish. “The students are thrilled – we have shown that we can compete. In the alliance, if you look at the video, you can see our robot is consistently delivering points in finals and semifinals. We are up against some of the best teams in Ontario. That made our day. We have a good design.”

Team captain Andrew Johnston agreed. “We’re feeling very happy. For a while we were ranked 23^rd and we were quite pleased. Then we ended up with an alliance that came seco^nd place. That was beyond amazing. We’re all celebrating. This is record breaking for us, a northern team with little resources.”

Although it’s a competition, FIRST Robotics fosters teamwork and collaboration. Teams are encouraged to do outreach in their respective communities, and often mentor newer teams. At the competition, the top-performing teams choose a partner to take to the final rounds and that pair together choose a third team to complete their alliance. The three teams in each alliance then work together in competition against the other seven alliances to try to make it from the quarterfinals to the final round.

“Even though our standings weren’t great, we had consistently delivered gears in autonomous mode, which is when the robot does whatever we’ve programmed it to do, and because of that and the defensive play of our driver, a couple teams started scouting us,” said McTavish. The team that asked them to join an alliance requested that the Hoyas install a new climbing mechanism on their robot (climbing a rope four-feet in the air is one of the tasks the robots must be able to complete).

“It improved our climbing immensely,” said Johnston. “It made us climb in six seconds total – it was pretty quick. Because we came second, they were nice enough to let us keep it.”

The team will spend the next week tweaking their robot, ensuring the new climbing mechanism is fully integrated and secured and repairing any damage incurred during the Georgian competition before heading to their next competition.

This is the first year that the FIRST Robotics Competition has held a series of district competitions. Each team in Ontario must choose two to compete in and their scores are combined to determine who will go to the provincial championships. The Hoyas chose a competition at Georgian College first, and will head to North Bay from April 6-8 for the second. A good showing there will send them to the provincials in Mississauga.

“We’re excited because when we go to North Bay, we’re bringing a bus of elementary students (from Spruce Glen, Riverside, and VK Greer) to watch,” said McTavish. “They get to tour the university and meet the team and get to watch some of the matches.”

In addition to fine-tuning their robot, the team is also preparing for a presentation for the Chairman’s Award. “It’s the most prestigious award (at the competition),” said Johnston. “You talk about your team and what you’ve done in the community to inspire FIRST and STEM outreach. If you win, it’s an automatic ticket to the next level of competition.”

If the Hoyas make it to the provincials, either with enough points or with the Chairman’s Award, they just need to make it into the top 30 of 60 teams to get to the world championships in St. Louis.

“In St. Louis, there’s something like 500 robotics teams competing. They have something like eight playing fields going nonstop. It’s phenomenal to watch,” said McTavish. He credited the support and expertise of the team’s mentors and sponsors, which includes the Rotary Club of Huntsville, Kimberly-Clark, and Reynolds Manufacturing, with making the team competitive and providing them with skills for the future. “We’ve had a number of students walk into jobs from local companies to the Department of Defense working on tanks and their robotics experience has helped them get these jobs.” The team welcomes other sponsors and mentors – learn more about Hoya Robotics here.

The North Bay competition will be broadcast live at watchfirstnow.com if you want to follow the team from afar, or admission is free at the event if you’d like to watch in person.

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