Winning Surrey students head to robotic provincials

The future of Canadian robotics programming looks bright thanks to one Surrey secondary school.

Enver Creek Secondary's senior robotics team took the top spot for its programming skills at the VEX Robotics Competition held in Port Moody this month. They are now heading to provincials and ultimately hope to represent Canada at the Robotics World Championships in Louisville, Kentucky in April.

Team coach, teacher Reuben Heredia said he is proud of how far the team has come and the many hours they put into programming and coding.

"I was fortunate enough to meet them and have an opportunity to work with them, it's a privilege."

Heredia the robot

The team's robot is named 'Heredia' after their coach.

Each year, the world championships set a different challenge for the competing teams. In 2019, Heredia the robot will have to compete against other robots in matches that test the bots' shooting, flipping and stacking skills.

Each competing team designs a robot they think will be up to the annual challenge and can make adjustments as they progress through rounds and qualifiers.

"Usually by the end of the year all our robots start to look similar as teams discover what the best method to score points is," said team member Madhurjot Sohi.

'Stick to it'

Sohi said the senior team also takes the time to advise and mentor the junior team at Enver Creek.  Aspiring young robot programmers need to put in the hours and just "stick with it," he said.

This is Sohi's last year of high school and he plans to begin an engineering degree next year.

Teammate Ritam Singhal says engineering skills are not the only thing he will carry with him from these competitions into his future career.

"It's gotten me technical experience, which is obvious, and even interpersonal skills like leadership which will help me at university."

Listen to the full interview with the team here: