The Mount Baker robotics team placed fourth in Canada, while the TV/Video Production team from also did well. Both teams are back from the Skills Canada nationals that ran from May 27 - 30.
BIll Walker, who teaches robotics at at Mount Baker Secondary School, accompanied the team to Saskatoon.
The team is made up of Joshua Zamora, Ravindu Ranasinghe and Adam Webster.
Walker said the robotics team didn’t place, but because of the way the game is played, tournament-style, they know that they came in fourth.
“There were eight teams from all around Canada and the bottom line is they are really great robots,” he said. “I’m actually kind of thrilled we came in fourth. Fourth in Canada to me is a pretty big deal.”
Walker said the team’s robot performed fine.
“We had the odd little problem, but nothing you wouldn’t expect,” he said. “It didn’t have a catastrophic failure or anything like that. A couple little glitches, but you always have those.”
He said the fourth place finish was quite an achievement given the high level of competition.
“It costs a heck of a lot of money to send people, so if you don’t think that you have a chance you probably wouldn’t send a team. The gold medal teams are the only ones competing,” Walker explained. “If you didn’t think you had a chance, I don’t think you’d want to raise $10,000 or more to send your team there.”
The Mount Baker team competing in TV/Video Production also made the competition. They are Brandon Ouillette and Devon Kennedy for TV/Video Production.
Kennedy said the trip was great.
“We didn’t place in the film, we actually don’t know what we placed, but we really enjoyed it,” Kennedy said. “It was a really cool experience.”
There were 11 other teams of two from all over Canada.
The team had to make two new videos for the competition.
“The first day we had eight hours to create a minute and a half newscast for Skills Canada,” she explained. “Then the next day we had four hours to make a 30 second commercial about Skills Canada. So we had to make two new videos.”
She said the eight hours for the first video was plenty of time, but the team felt the constraints of the four hour limit.
Kennedy said this was her and Ouillette’s first time competing as a group at this level, but she did compete last year at the regional levels.