Funding helpful for FIRST Robotics team

FIRST Robotics teams across the county are looking for funds to help with this year’s competition.

A dozen local high school teams participating in this years “stronghold event” are currently fundraising to make their robots a reality. The seemingly fun competition has a myriad of costs involved.

One local team trying to make ends meet is last year’s regional champions the Assumption Catholic High School Purple Raiders. Lauren Lanoue is a Grade 11 student and head of the teams Business department. She helps track all the money coming in and out of the team. According to Lanoue they have a current budget of $30,000. She said those funds are necessary for operating the team.

“Without our sponsors and without our fundraising we wouldn’t have a team,” said Lanoue. We don’t get funding from the school and actually have to build the team from the ground up…Everything we buy, registering for competitions, transportation, everything comes from the money we get from our sponsors.”

According to FIRST Robotics Canada’s website they were established in 2001. Their goal is to inspire students from grade school to high school to keep studying engineering, physics and technology. 160 teams involved over 5,000 students, 1,000 mentors and 800 volunteers in last year’s competition.
Irek Kusmierczyk is the Director of Partnerships at WeTech Alliance is one of the point people for our regional competition. He believes preparing and competing in competitions like this gets students ready for the real world.

“It’s like starting and running their own technology start-up company. They get experience and skills when it comes to mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and business programming,” said Kusmierczyk. “In terms of business plans, graphic designs, communications, PR, they are running a technology start-up company.”

The local teams received a couple of boosts to get their build going this year. St. Clair College donated $17,000 to be divided among the teams. Fiat-Chrysler donated money to each team to help get them going. LouAnn Gosselin is the Head of Communications at Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles of Canada. She says they try and work with programs that promote science, technology, electronic and math or STEM learning and have been working with FIRST for a few years.

“Twelve community schools were granted a $5,000 dollar U.S. award each this year to use towards their programming efforts,” said Gosselin. “It’s at their discretion to use the funds how they need them… it differs from school to school.”

According to Kusmiercyzk, Windsor hosts the largest gathering of teams each year and this year’s competition will also have a team from Europe. For those who want to come see the end result of all the hard work and fundraising the regional competition will be held April 8 and 9 at the St. Denis Centre at the University of Windsor.