Wiikwemkoong High School robotics team head to FIRST Robotics Competition in the new year

By Rick Garrick

WIIKWEMKOONG UNCEDED TERRITORY—The Wiikwemkoong High School robotics team is looking forward to another year of FIRST Robotics Competitions beginning in the new year.

“This will be my third year — I like seeing the team grow,” says Jason Mishibinijima, a Grade 12 student. “And we’re making it further and further each year, hopefully making it to the provincial championships this year.”

Mishibinijima says the details of the game for the Ontario Robotics Championship are released in January.

“From there, we have six weeks to build the robot,” Mishibinijima says. “It does take a lot of time.”

Mishibinijima says he was previously on the build team for robotics team. The teams build industrial robots up to 120 pounds in weight to perform prescribed tasks against the other robotics teams.

“This year, I am going to be trying to code autonomous for the robot,” Mishibinijima says. “Last year in the robotics class we have here, I built a VEX bot and programmed it to drive on its own using sonar sensors, so it would drive around the room and avoid stuff.”

Mishibinijima says there is a lot of stress during the robotics competitions but it is also fun.

“There are a lot of new people—it’s good energy,” Mishibinijima says. “It’s a great experience. I’d love for everyone to experience this at least once in their life.”

Mary Pangowish, a Grade 11 student and robotics team captain, also enjoys being on the robotics team.

“It’s been really beneficial to me — it’s made me really happy to see how many people can come out of their shells,” Pangowish says. “This is my second year on the team, so I’ve not seen a whole lot but I’ve seen enough to tell how influential the whole program is for everybody in our community.”

Pangowish says the team has moved their build room from upstairs to downstairs and has since been busy cleaning and taking inventory.

“We’re contacting all our sponsors again to get them onboard for this year,” Pangowish says. “We are also attending some preseason events with [FIRST Team] 1305 in North Bay.”

Pangowish says last year’s robotics competition was stressful for her as well.

“But at the same time it was a lot of fun,” Pangowish says. “You really learn a lot in the months that it is happening. It’s a lot of learning how to deal with the stress, building relationships with the other teams, talking with corporate sponsors.”

Raven Pheasant, a Grade 9 student, says the robotics team is a “great opportunity” to try something new.

“I thought it would be something really unique to try because not all [First Nations] get these kind of opportunities,” Pheasant says. “[The other team members] worked on a couple [of robots] already, and I worked on my little LEGO robot. We code them ourselves and we tell them what to do and if they do it that is exactly right.”

David Jackson, a Grade 12 student, recalls one of the former robotics team members saying that “robotics is probably some of the hardest fun you will ever have.”

”And that is really true,” Jackson says. “There is the bug fixing and making sure the design actually is feasible, making sure we are within the rules, like our robot is not too tall, too small.”

Jackson adds that they met another First Nations robotics team at a competition last year.

“We just sort of gravitated to the other team,” Jackson says. “We found out from their manager that they specifically tried to find one of our events to go to because they wanted to meet us.”