Kent takes top 10 at LEGO robotics provincials.
A team of students from grades 7 and 8 at Kent Senior Public School, came in the top ten at the FIRST LEGO League Provincials. The students made robots that performed a number of tasks at the challenge. They are left to right, Thivija, Tina, Youssef, Steven, Clifford, John. Stephanie, Kevin, Michael, and Shaswati.
Staff photo/IAN KELSO
It is Kent Senior Public School's first - and last - Top 10 showing in the FIRST LEGO League West Provincials.
That is because the Dufferin-Bloor streets area grades 7-8 school is closing this June.
Students are on a winning streak. Last year, they came first in the regional competition and took the innovation award at last year's provincials. This year, they came second in the west regional.
FIRST - For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology - was the brainchild of U.S. Segway inventor Dean Kamen in 1989. In 1998, Kamen and LEGO Group's Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen joined forces to create FIRST LEGO League, a program to engage children ages nine to 14 in learning while helping them discover the fun in science and technology through the FIRST experience.
"(FIRST LEGO League) encourages children to design, construct and program their own intelligent inventions. This allows them not only to understand technology, but to become masters of it," said Kristiansen, owner and deputy chairman of the LEGO Group.
Using LEGO MINDSTORM technology, students apply real-world math and science concepts to build a robot to complete tasks on a playing surface. Secondly, students must research a challenge facing today's scientists and present it to judges. Food safety was this year's research project.
Teams of nine students and two alternates also receive points for demonstrating "core values" such as teamwork and co-operation.
FIRST LEGO League had not determined the top 10 west provincials' placements by Villager deadline.
"Students were enthusiastic, determined. They wanted to build a better robot than last year," said Grade 8 science and homeroom teacher Giovanna Vaccaro, one of Kent's FIRST competition coaches.
Students worked on their entry every lunch hour and after school since October and even came in to school during December holidays.
"They get to know one another. They have to think outside the box and apply what they learn in math and science in a practical way. Students see science and math doesn't just happen in labs or in textbooks," Vaccaro said.
"A lot of students said they want to be engineers or programmers."
Coach Kevin Shepherd, a Kent Grade 8 math and homeroom teacher, said students created add-ons and different designs to the LEGO robot kit inspired by suggested models on the Internet that they then modified.
"Students learn how pieces move together, gears work. They have to try different things," Shepherd said. "It is somewhat complex. A lot of it is mechanics and engineering. There is some programming based on how many degrees they want the robot to move."
It is Shepherd's second year as a coach.
"It gives students an add-on to their education. I like to see the kids motivated," Shepherd said of his interest in coaching. "It's another way to get to know the kids and see them outside the classroom and for them to get to know you."
School guidance counsellor Effi Kapoulis also acted as a coach. Former Kent FIRST LEGO League teammate and now Bloor Collegiate student Celine Tat acted as student mentor for the team.
Team 1286 Happy Carrots! at Broadacres Public School in Etobicoke took the presentation award at the FIRST LEGO League West Provincials.
In 2010, Toronto public school board trustees voted to close Kent Senior Public School, and seven other public schools, and to invest more than $56 million back into the remaining schools in the board's so-called Accommodation Review Committees (ARCs).
Ministry of Education funding to the board is tied to student enrolment. Meanwhile, student enrolment has been down 13 per cent between 2002 and 2010, superintendent Karen Falconer said at the first ARC meeting that was part of the Bloor-Dufferin project at Kent in December 2009.
The board established ARCs in an effort to generate capital funding through redevelopment, consolidation and rebuilding. The board has "half-empty schools", Falconer reported.
~With files from Eric Heino and Lisa Rainford