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National Engineering Month makes learning fun for the kids (12 photos)

Bridges, robotics, math highlight Saturday's event at Station Mall

The annual National Engineering Month event had people of all ages and walks of life stopping by and checking out a number of interactive displays at the Station Mall Saturday.

Lone Wolf Robotics, a local VEX EDR robotics team that’s heading to the world robotics championships in Louisville, Kentucky next month, was showing a group of children one of its robots as part of the interactive VEX robotics display.

“The game is called ‘in the zone,’ so we’re just displaying it, showing our robots, and we’re preparing for the worlds competition,” said Lone Wolf Robotics member Tiana Bressan. “So this is good practice for us too, and some of the kids are getting to play with the little robots, and it’s fun. It exposes us a little bit more in our community.”

“It inspires little kids to go into engineering... it opens up another aspect of Sault Ste. Marie almost, and we can maybe grow it to become something bigger.”

Meanwhile on the other side of the Station Mall, Marc Pilon - who is the vice chair for the Algoma chapter of Professional Engineers Ontario - was on hand to drum up some interest in the upcoming bridge building competition at Sault College, slated for May 5.

This year’s National Engineering Month event marked the first time the bridge competition display has made an appearance.

 “We might get a couple more kids interested in this event if we had the stuff here and showed it off,” said Pilon.

The bridge building competition is open to area students from grades four to twelve. Pilon hopes that the display will encourage more students to register for the event.  

“We don’t get every school in town enter into the contest,” said Pilon. “So if there’s any kids here that see some of this stuff, that you know, their school might not be pushing the information, they can see it, grab a registration kit and kind of get going that way.”

The displays were for the most part kid-friendly, as children tried their hand at colouring contests, button making and the popular math competition.

Back at the Lone Wolf Robotics display, team member Tia Bariciak hopes that more kids will be inspired to take up robotics after watching the team’s demonstration Saturday.

“It’s hand-on learning, ultimately, and it’s fun,” said Bariciak.


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James Hopkin

About the Author: James Hopkin

James Hopkin is a reporter for SooToday in Sault Ste. Marie
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