Two Comox Valley secondary school teams successfully qualified to compete in the VEX Robotics World Championships in Louisville, Kentucky in April.
Students from Mark R. Isfeld Secondary captured first place last weekend at the Vancouver Island Regional Tournament hosted at Isfeld on a team paired with students from Victoria’s Claremont Secondary.
Emalee Box, Kyle LeBlanc, AJ Grey, and Evan Claassen, representing Isfeld 1136A team will be joined by the NIDES 7842F team whose robot skills involving autonomous programming and driving pushed them into a position that also earn them a berth into the VEX Worlds.
This will be the first time for members on the winning team to advance beyond the provincial level to represent Vancouver Island on the world stage as one of a handful of regions across Canada.
“It was an absolutely fantastic event,” stated tournament organizer Steve Claassen, a Comox Valley schools careers co-ordinators. “Our region and the Island have produced some brilliant engineering and robotics students over the years that have been very competitive on the national and world stage.”
Claassen attributes the success of these students to teachers offering specialty programs such as the ENTER program (NIDES), Physics and Engineering and iMaker in the schools along with dedicated parents that support their kids here in the Valley.
The Mark R. Isfeld and NIDES teams have one and a half months to prepare for the worlds.
Interested in helping sponsor these students getting to the worlds? Contact Steve Claassen for more information, steve.claassen@sd71.bc.ca.