Robot, basketball star compete

by Rob Benneian

The worlds of athletics and science came together, if only for an afternoon, in a three-point shooting competition.

The first annual WE-Tech Alliance robotics open house was held Oct. 11 at Windsor Public Library. The main attraction was a pair of robots designed by high school students capable of sinking baskets.

Jordan, named after hoops legend Michael Jordan, is the robot designed and built by students from Governor Simcoe Secondary School in St. Catherine’s, Ont. to compete in the annual For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology competition.

The Governor Simcoe team, which goes by the name Simbotics, won the Chairman’s Award this year. The award recognizes teams that show commitment to spreading passion for science and technology and is the most prestigious FIRST award a team can win. Simbotics was the first ever Canadian team to win the award.

“It’s not just the robot, we do all kinds of other things,” said Brandon Pruniak, a 20-year-old former Governor Simcoe student and mentor for Simbotics. “It’s basically coming out, getting the robot and showing the community. What you do around the community, spreading the word of FIRST.”

Students from Sandwich Secondary School also participated in the competition and were at the library to show off their robot. Sixteen-year-old Sarah Nichol joined Sabre Bytes, the Sandwich team, in Grade 9. She and her teammates built “Droid” and won a regional competition in Tennessee, the first such victory for the school in its 11 years of competing.

“That was the best experience ever,” said Nichol. “It was amazing because our team has been working hard for eleven years now, we’ve been doing pretty well but we’ve never actually won. It was a great accomplishment to know that we built that robot and we won.”

Simbotics demonstrated of their robot’s abilities in a shooting exhibition with Windsor Express guard Isaac Kuon. Despite a height differential of approximately five feet, Jordan was able to keep up with the professional baller. After shooting to a 10-10 draw, the six-foot-four Kuon said he was impressed with Jordan and the student engineers.

“It’s amazing,” Kuon said. “I heard they’re high school kids too, that’s even more impressive.”

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