Chase and Hunter are off to the World Championships!

NEWS RELEASE

VEX IQ ROBOTICS

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The Elementary Division team from Missarenda Consolidated Public School (in Missanabie) has done it – they’ve won an invitation to the VEX IQ World Robotics Championships!

With final matches concluding at the Provincial Championships in Mississauga, Sault and district teams performed well and had many respectable results. Out of the 37 teams competing, eight teams were from the Northern Ontario district qualifiers, with several schools posting top-half overall finishes.

In Robot Skills, where driver teams and programmers compete in single-robot driving and programming contests, the top team from the north was the Holy Family Flames, posting an impressive sixth place final result.  FH Clergue’s S.M.A.K. finished eleventh, followed by Superior Heights Witcher, RM Moore’s Megabots, and Notre Dame du Sault’s 'NDS Robotics' who were twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth respectively.

In Team Matchplay, where teams of two-robots worked together in random pairs during round robin play, the Flames was the top local team, ending the day in fifth place, with S.M.A.K ranked twelfth, and Witcher in nineteenth, and the Blind River 'Vex Cubs' in twentieth. All four of those teams advanced to the playoff round.

In the playoffs, Witcher and the Vex Cubs were paired as the 9th-seed Alliance in the finals, scoring 18 points in their playoff final for a ninth place final ranking. The Holy Family Flames, who were paired up with Brampton’s Discobots posted a 45-point score for a final ranking of seventh. FH Clergue’s S.M.A.K. was matched with the 'Broken Gears' from Fenwick, and scored an impressive 53-point match, finishing as the fourth place pair, the highest in the playoffs for the Northern teams. 

In the final Awards of the day, the team from Missanabie was selected as recipients of the special Judge’s Award for strong performances and overall robot design. F.H.Clergue’s S.M.A.K brought home the Sportsmanship trophy.

The final surprise of the event came when the nine teams from Ontario to earn World Championships were announced. By having the third place overall ranking for all Ontario Elementary teams (Grades 3 to 5) in Robot Skills during the entire season, earned during their efforts in the Sault College Qualifying event last month, the two boys from Missanabie (brothers Hunter and Chase Martel) secured their invitation to the World Championships, which will take place in Louisville, Kentucky in April. This is the first time a Northern Ontario team has earned a VEX World’s invitation.

Three local high school teams, from Korah, C.A.S.S. and St. Mary’s will also be competing at their Provincial Championships in St. Catharines next weekend, where more World Invitations will be earned at the secondary school level.

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