At 5:20 a.m. on a cold, dark Wednesday morning in April, 10 of SMUS’s most determined and experienced roboticists from the Senior School Robotics Club gathered to board the bus with six large boxes of tools and equipment. They were headed for the Skills B.C. Provincial Championships in Abbotsford, B.C.
Over the past eight months, students had spent countless hours preparing during lunch breaks and after-school sessions under the guidance of SMUS’s robotics specialist, Ms. Maureen Hann. On the day of the competition, hundreds of competitors and thousands of spectators descended on the Tradex Centre at Abbotsford International Airport for events including 2D and 3D animation, CAD, electronics, computer networking, software design, and more.
Annabel Taubenschlag, Alex Zhang, Joan Jiang, and Alvin Tsao (team SMUS1), along with Rubio Wu, Yashita Kaku, Siena Gill, and Jason Fan (team SMUS2), all qualified for the provincial senior robotics competition. Elliot Judson and Mangkorn Laororjpinyo also qualified for the provincial senior mechanical CAD drawing competition.
Fusion, Focus, and Fast Adaptation
Even though we took the first ferry of the day, we arrived just as events were beginning, so the students jumped into action without missing a beat. Elliot and Mangkorn booted up their laptops and began creating CAD sketches of a mounting bracket for a winch system within 10 minutes of getting off the bus.
Like many other CAD competitors, they were using Fusion software—something we’ve integrated into our STEAM classes over the last four years. This decision has clearly paid off. For example, Mr. Wonjin Kim, lead teacher of the Grade 10 STEAM experiential program, recently arranged for expert Fusion designer Ms. Kim Arkle (from UVic’s Victoria Hand Project) to work with students on industry-standard techniques like file organization, force analysis, rendering, and collaborative workflows. Elliot was one of those students, and he felt confident competing at Skills BC because of this training.
Overcoming Obstacles with Resilience
The robotics teams hit a setback early when, during robot inspection, they were told their robot exceeded the allowable volume and couldn’t run on the competition floor. Understandably, this was disappointing after hours of travel. While their robot met the individual dimension limits, a lesser-known volume restriction buried in one of six competition documents caught them off guard.
But years of competition experience—dating back to middle school—kicked in. The students shook it off and quickly rebuilt the robot’s lifting mechanism to meet the requirements. Within half an hour, they passed inspection and were driving their robot on the field against North Peace Secondary School, scoring points.
The judges were visibly impressed by their determination, teamwork, skill, and positive attitude. Ms. Hann credits their resilience and quick problem-solving to the IT Department’s emphasis on the Design Cycle, taught in courses from Media Design 9 to Robotics 11 and Computer Science 12. Students are trained to incorporate feedback, research solutions, and iterate designs—a skill set that served them well.
The competition delivered plenty of excitement for the spectators, and the students took inspiration from other teams. On the ferry ride home, they were already planning next year’s strategy, brainstorming the idea of building two complementary robots—a simple one and a complex one—to work together and rack up points more efficiently.
