Robotics
Me + Robotics = :)
I love robotics.
I love it so much that it gets its own section on this website. I love it so much that I constantly try to surround myself with it. Whether that be through taking courses and learning, or volunteering and coaching, or travelling the continent to compete in international competitions.
I will break this up into 3 sections. My Journey, volunteering/teaching, and competing. Feel free to hop around.
Volunteering - Mentoring - Teaching
As I mentioned I love robotics, and I am grateful to those who helped me learn and fall in love with it when I was first getting started. So I want to give back to that same robotics community in any way that I can. Typically, that takes the form of creating video tutorials, teaching live beginner classes, and mentoring robotics teams. I usually coordinate a lot of these activities with FIRST themselves because they are more easily able to connect me with people who need support.
Outreach
To spread awareness of robotics outside the existing robotics community I also perform outreach events to companies and schools. For example, I reached out to Sheridan Colledge, the City of Brampton, BGC Peel, Opentext, and middle schools.
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Competing
First Robotics Competition
FRC is another robotics competition from FIRST. The competition is for students in grades 9-12. This can be considered the most advanced and largest out of the three competitions. With an average annual cost of $25,000 this was not a competition that I could do by my self, and even a community team would struggle to pay. Money is also far from the only obstacle, with no pre-made parts you will need machine shops wth the corresponding specialized training, and the required speace. Not to mention the number of people you will need for all the different roles. Because of this I petitioned to start the club in my high school. In grade 10 I co-lead the club with experienced grade 12's and for the past two years, I have been running the club as the nominated team captain. Leading such a massive team (100+ members) with such large costs helps to prepare me for what managing large-scale teams in the workforce feels like.
First Tech Challange
FTC is a robotics competition for students in grades 7-12. The competition is hosted by FIRST. The team is my personal team. I manage all aspects of the team. From logistics to design it has been a pleasure leading this team the past 2 years (2019-2021). Managing this team has taught me a lot, of course about robots, but also about people. I plan on continuing to participate and grow the team until I graduate and then come back to mentor for the community.
VEX EDR
VEX EDR is one of the robotics competitions from VEX. It is meant for high school students (grades 9-12). For this competition, I joined the DiscoBots team. DiscoBots is an open community organization that competes in VEX EDR and VEX IQ. I have been a part of DiscoBots for 3 years. My competitive robotics journey began with them. I started in VEX IQ (Middle School) and did that for 1 year. Then I continued with them into VEX EDR for 2 years now.