Wow! What a day for Ridley at the Holy Cross Southern Ontario robotics championship. With over 16 schools and 39 teams represented, Ridley’s three teams were competitive right out of the gate. The “Z” machine, an experimental trebuchet style robot was unexpectedly successful. It was built by Jacob Eschweiler and Steve Docherty as an experiment with pneumatics, coached by Mr. McCambley, and was undoubtedly the crowd favorite as driver John Hejzlar fired rings all over the field.

Tyler Porter drove his machine, programmed by newly minted programmer Igal Flegmann, and did well in the preliminary rounds, eventually being defeated by another Ridley team, alliance headed and piloted by our top driver, James Curtis. James’ machine was designed and built by Steve Docherty with help from Enoch Ho and Cheryl Wong. This machine won the amaze award for the most innovative robot at the contest! Taylor Petrick programmed this machine (and the Z machine) and won the programmer’s challenge trophy, scoring the best two runs of the day. He also drove in the driver skills competition, tying for the high score of the event.

Hayyan, Cheryl, Heather and Jacob did a great job of scouting for the team, finding out what our alliance partners and opponents were capable of before every one of the 24 preliminary matches our three teams were in.

In summary, there are three competitions in one: head-to-head team competition, a driver skills competition, and a programming skills competition. Today Ridley won the head to head championship, our best machine 1509B going undefeated 14-0; team 1509 finished second, and 1509Z finished 3rd. We also won the programming skills and tied for the top score in the driver skills challenge. It was an amazing day. Ridley was dominant. Go Blacks Go!!

– VEX Robotics Coach and Ridley College Teacher, Mr. Rodney Reimer