Team 1305 rolled into North Bay after a 20-hour bus trip from St. Louis Missouri Sunday evening the winners of the Entrepreneurship Award at the World Robotics Competition
Twenty-five members of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Team 1305 participated along-side 700 teams and more than 15,000 students from 33 countries at the world’s largest celebration of science, technology, engineering and math for students.
The five-day event attracted more than 30,000 people.
For the past several months, team members have been putting their 2016/17 Business Plan together which they submitted early in the season in the hopes of receiving an Entrepreneurship Award. Having received the award at a District event held at Victoria Park School in Toronto this March, students refreshed the plan to get it ready to compete on the larger stage at Worlds.
The Team’s business plan, led by North Bay student Harikesh Panchal, outlines their operations throughout the year and clearly articulates the team’s five key performance indicators:
- community outreach efforts,
- sponsorship retention and recruitment,
- finances and
- future plans.
- woven into the 45 page plan is the team’s annual efforts to raise the awareness of STEM – science, technology, engineering and math, at a community, regional, national and international level.
Known as the ‘drive team’, members Hayden Kelso (Drive Team Manager), William Fraser, Dalton Houlder and Bailey Lebel, led their 120 pound robot known as “Clark” to finish fourth overall in the division qualifiers. Clark and the team battled hard winning the quarter finals, two games to one in the best of three series. Unfortunately the team wasn’t able to out-score their opponents led by Team 1114 (also from Ontario) in the semi-finals.
The Team was also recognized for their outstanding safety awareness program led by the Team’s Safety Captain Britney Lebel, making the shortlist of the top three teams nominated for the Safety Award. In addition, Team Captain Jessica Kelso made the shortlist for the Dean’s Award which recognizes a student’s outstanding contributions in leadership and raising the awareness of FIRST.
The team will now take a week's rest before reconvening to evaluate this year’s successes and chart their plans for next year.
FIRST Team 1305 is a community-based team and welcomes students from all school boards across North Bay and area.
