Northern Alberta students fight for spot at international robotics competition

Robots, created and coded by northern Alberta students, compete at the FIRST Tech Challenge Northern Alberta Tournament on Feb. 8, 2025. (Galen McDougall/CTV News Edmonton)

Northern Alberta students showcased their robotics skills Saturday.

The FIRST Tech Challenge Northern Alberta Tournament brought together 21 teams of tweens and teens from grades seven to 12 to compete at Salisbury Composite in Sherwood Park.

Dave Stork, lead coordinator with FIRST Alberta, said students have been working on their robots for the international competition since September.

Each team paired up with another team to use their robots to try and outscore opposing teams, using both automated and controlled movement.

Stork said the competition helps students make friends, learn to work in teams and develop transferable skills that can give them an edge in post-secondary.

“They’re gaining incredible engineering skills. They’re gaining incredible software development skills and even business development skills,” Stork said. “It’s taking the classroom and making it real world.

Blake Ramage and Hunter Evanochko, Grade 12 students, were both returning to the competition. They said it’s always been a rewarding experience.

“Grade 11 year, it was really fun,” Ramage said. “I wanted to come back and do it, and I wanted to put my all into it, just be as good as we could.”

“I want to go into mechanical engineering, and this was like the best option. And I really loved this competition, so I kept coming back,” Evanochko said.

According to Stork, there are almost 100 FIRST Tech challenge teams across the province, each made up of four to 15 members.

Mehdi Abbas and Jon Ali are part of a 15-person team from AlBaqir Academy in Edmonton.

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“We are a smaller private school, we’re definitely trying to prove ourselves to other schools,” Abbas added. “Show everyone what we can do.”

“This is definitely one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had so far,” Abbas said. “Just the teamwork, friendship, all of that.”

Five teams from the Northern Alberta tournament will go to the provincial championships in Red Deer in March, where they have a chance to make it to the world championship in Houston, Tx.