A group of robotics students from Richmond came home victorious after impressing judges at two Metro Vancouver tournaments held earlier this month.
The three high school teams from Richmond-based Western Pacific Robotics Academy (WPRA) swept six out of 13 awards at the PYRS Heritage Woods Qualifier held in Port Moody on Dec. 9.
The Notion team was crowned tournament champions and won the build award, while the YaBaDaBaDoo team nabbed the high school excellence and robot skills champion awards. The Orion team also took home the amaze award.
Following their success, WPRA's middle school team was crowned champions of the Dec. 10 Gord Trousdell Ten Ton Robotics middle school tournament, as well as the winners of the design award.
"It's been one of our best weekends this season so far," said WPRA spokesperson Nevin Li, who added the "incredible group" of students had put in long hours in preparation for the tournaments.
The Richmond-based non-profit is dedicated to providing robotics programs for local students and has members from Richmond as well as other school districts.
"We've formed (WPRA) because in Richmond, there are not a lot of high schools that have a robotics team," Li explained.
Li, who used to compete in VEX robotics competitions when he was a student, told the Richmond News it is important to provide such opportunities because the competitions have "produced a lot of very successful engineers over its history."
"And we see a lot of other (school) districts have really prioritized robotics. ... There's no public schools in Richmond that are part of this. So that's why this society is providing an option for students to get involved," he added.
The winning teams will be preparing for the upcoming provincials, which take place once a year.
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