Elementary school robotics team from Windsor to compete in Skills Ontario competition

The logo of the M.S. Hetherington RoboHawks. (Source: Facebook)

An elementary school robotics team from Windsor-Essex will be competing in the Skills Ontario Competition in Toronto.

The event set to take place May 4 at the Congress Centre will see four members of M.S. Hetherington Elementary School’s robotics team, the RoboHawks, compete against accomplished teams from across the province in the Lego robotics category.

During the two-and-a-half days of the Skills Ontario Competition, the teams will compete for gold, silver, or bronze medals and, in some case, cash prizes in their given field.

Team coach Chuck Stoffl says it’s the first time an elementary school from our area will compete in the competition.

“The team basically competes in the First Lego League, which is a global organization that puts on different competitions. They compete in that and have done quite well over the years. But this is the first time they’ve been invited to compete in Skills Ontario, which is a completely different competition for them,” he said.

The RoboHawks first formed in 2018 and since their inception, the team has won numerous awards and has qualified for the FLL Provincial Championships for the past five years.

Stoffl says the team is excited but a little nervous because this competition is different from what they’re used to in the First Lego League.

“They don’t know what the game is or what the competition is in terms of the track they have to run on,” he said. “They can’t build a robot ahead of time, so they have to bring all their parts with them, then see what the challenge is, and then build their robot on-site.”

Stoffl says the students are in Grade 8 and have been on the team for a while.

“They are good builders, they are good coders, and I just have to remind them all the time that they’ve done this. They’ve built attachments; they can do all the coding. It’s just one step more that they have to do at the competition instead of showing up with the robot and all the codes done ahead of time. Now they have to do it all on site,” he explained.

M.S. Hetherington is located at 8800 Menard St. in Windsor.