Students from 20 schools designed and built their own remote-control robots to compete against one another in this annual multi-faceted competition.

Each year, CRC Robotics, a branch of the Educational Alliance for Science and Technology, devises a new game to test students’ ingenuity in designing a robot that can accomplish specified tasks. In addition to being judged on the design and construction of their robot and how well it performs on the game court, each school must also create a website, produce a video, compile a journal and build a kiosque for the event. Each of these components, as well as sportsmanship, contributes to a school’s overall score.

The Selwyn House robotics team won first place for its video and journal, and second place for its website. The team placed fifth for its kiosque and finished fifth in a very tight competition on the court, ending with an overall score that won the Gryphons top honours, making Selwyn House the second school to win twice in eight years of CRC competition.

This year’s game was called Vexoic, in honour of the Vex kit, which was introduced to the competition this year. The kit provides a standardized power supply, gears and other basic components needed to build a robot.

In Vexoic, a three-section “garage” is positioned at either end of the 16 x 32-foot game court. Working in teams of four, robots must gather coloured tennis balls from centre court and shoot them into the sections of each garage. It’s a cooperative effort among the robots; one must open the door while its partner shoots the balls in. Only one team is on the court at a time, competing against the clock to get balls into all six sections in five minutes or less.

Four months before the competition, the rules of the game are announced and students must design and build a robot that can navigate the court, pick up balls, sort them by colour and fire them through the garage doors.

Competition based on cooperation is always a principle of the CRC games. Schools drew lots to determine who would make up a team for each match, and met beforehand to devise a strategy that capitalized on each robot’s strengths.

From the beginning, students are expected to do the work themselves, from brainstorming designs and testing prototypes to carrying out every stage of all aspects of the competition. This year’s Selwyn House team was completely self-directed, says one of the team’s faculty advisors, Senior science teacher Mike Downey. “This year they took it to an extreme,” he says. “[The other advisors and I] had no idea what was going on.”

For the first time, the Selwyn House Robotics project was linked with a humanitarian cause, (RED), an organization fighting AIDS in Africa. The Selwyn House Robotics team raised $2,000 for (RED) by holding a free-dress day, selling wrist bands and raffling off shoes from Converse, a corporate sponsor of (RED).