Barrie District FIRST Robotics competition a huge success

The competition was fierce, and the battles hard won at Georgian College’s third District FIRST Robotics event – Barrie, ON’s largest annual robotics competition – held at the Barrie Campus over the St. Patrick’s Day weekend.

A total of 26 teams of high school students had only two months to design, prototype, build, program and test their robots. This year, there were five teams from Michigan, as well as three from Simcoe County.

Teams were judged on teamwork, engineering excellence, entrepreneurial spirit, as well as specific tasks their robots were required to complete during the competition.

In the end, Team 1325, Inverse Paradox from Mississauga, won the coveted District Chairman’s Award and all three Simcoe County teams were also honoured. Team 2013, the Cybergnomes from Clearview Township, took home the Judges’ Award. Team 6336, the Javawockies from Springwater, won the Gracious Professionalism Award sponsored by Johnson & Johnson. Team 7200, Banting Memorial high school from Alliston, won the Autonomous Award sponsored by Ford.

“This weekend was an opportunity to showcase the talent, intelligence and gracious professionalism of our future innovative colleagues and leaders,” said Lisa Banks, Vice President, External Relations and Enrolment. “I’m always impressed by their creativity, teamwork, sportsmanship, and problem-solving abilities as they navigate this difficult and incredibly dynamic competition.”

Georgian College partnered with FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), an international not-for-profit organization, to host the event March 15 to 17.

Almost 1,000 people – students, competitors, coaches, industry leaders, and supporters – attended the event. Approximately 100 volunteers from within the college and across the community worked to ensure the event ran smoothly.

Georgian’s event is one of 10 competitions taking place across Ontario this year. Award-winning teams from these events will move on to provincial championships in April at the Paramount Fine Foods Centre in Mississauga to fight for a spot at the FRC World Championship.

Georgian is home to 13,000 full-time students, including over 3,600 international students from 85 countries.

FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is an international non-profit organization designed to inspire students to pursue studies and careers in science, engineering and technology. Over 400,000 students participate in FIRST programs worldwide. FIRST Robotics Canada, which was started in 2002, has over 1000 teams in Canada and now reaches over 20,000 Canadian students.