Maple Ridge robotics team raising funds for new robot

A group of students on the Garibaldi secondary robotics team is trying to raise money to build their 2022 robot.

The FIRST Garibaldi Robotics #7173 team, made up of 25 students, are planning to compete in the Canadian Pacific Region Competition held in Victoria, BC – and also the World Championships that are to be held in Houston, TX, in April.

FIRST Robotics are hands-on programs that introduce students to engineering and coding where they work together to compete in an annual robotics challenge.

This year they will be competing in RAPID REACT, a transportation-inspired competition, where, under strict rules and limited resources, teams have to build and program industrial-sized robots to play a themed field game.

Jeannine Lyotier, a mother of two of the team’s members, has started a GoFundMe for the team to try and raise $1,500, to put towards the team’s goals.

The team was formed in 2018 by a group of students in Grades 8 to 10. They formed team Iris Robotics and spent six weeks building their first robot before heading to Victoria for their first competition – which they won.

The 2018 Canadian Pacific Regional Champions then traveled to the World Champions, where, Lyotier said in a post on GoFundMe, they were inspired to continue building robots and learn about science and technology.

In 2019 the team participated in two competitions: Operation Deep Space in Victoria and Girls Generation in Maple Valley, Washington.

“While the team is student led and relies on the community for mentorship, guidance, learning and troubleshooting, the team also needs your support for sponsoring the next generation of engineers, technicians and entrepreneurs to engage and create technology that could change the world,” wrote Lyotier online.

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“Community and Family support is vital to our ability to compete and reach our goals,” she said.

Lyotier described the RAPID REACT competition as fun, educational, and extremely challenging.

The average age of the Garibaldi team is 15 years and 75 per cent of their FIRST alumni are now in the STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering, Math – field as either a student or a professional.

So far the team has raised $1,075 of their goal.

Lyotier said 100 per cent of the funds will be going to the team and she will not be requesting a tax receipt for the funds.

For more information go to gofundme.com.