Robotics students travel to Thailand for Robocup World Championships

Following an impressive five championship-trophy showing at the Quebec National RoboCup Junior qualifier, the World Cup in Bangkok, Thailand was a humbling but incredible experience for the Robotics teams.
 
On Thursday, July 7 three teams and their mentors left for Bangkok to represent Canada in the RoboCup Junior World Championships. One of the teams competed in the Rescue Maze Competition, another in the Rescue Line Competition, and the third in the Lightweight Soccer Competition. All events require a team to provide a robot that can perform all tasks autonomously, and no human control is allowed. Most notably, all three teams, the only teams from Canada, were all from St. Andrew’s College.
 
Given the timing of the flights, we had a couple of sightseeing days before the competitions began and took full advantage of them! The Thai culture and history were brought to life with tours of temples, floating markets, elephant rides, and relaxing swims in natural waterfall-filled ponds. There was also a visit to the King’s summer palace, a river dinner cruise, and of course the incredible Thai food and very friendly Thai people.
 
The RoboCup Junior competition is held alongside the RoboCup Majors, which allowed the students to watch similar challenges being performed by their university counterparts. The Junior competition ran for four days, and our teams had mixed results on the first day. After settling in, all three teams showed daily improvement against the world’s best. Everyone willingly worked at finetuning their robots for at least eight hours a day which resulted in many successes.
 
The teams returned home on July 17 and are proud to say that the Soccer and Maze team both earned Top-10 finishes. The Rescue Line team’s achievement is equally as impressive as they redid their robot in a matter of weeks and competed against teams who had been working on theirs for years, throughout the pandemic. Yet, the Rescue Line team held their own, beating about a third of the world’s top teams.
 
Congratulations to all the students on their competition success: Terrence Deng, Evan He, Haadi Khan, Oscar Liu, Seamus Martin, Ethan May, Aaron Wang, Adrian Wei, Philip Weidenbach, and Bryan Zhao.

I have never worked with a more exemplary group of boys who embodied the Andrean philosophy of the “Complete man, the well-rounded citizen.”
 
 Story by Terry Prezens, Upper School Teacher
 
Back
We are committed to building a sense of belonging in our community.
By dedicating ourselves to creating a diverse, inclusive, and equitable environment, we will foster and accept the unique individuality of each of our citizens, ensuring all members feel valued and respected.
"Dedicated to the development of the complete man, the well-rounded citizen." | © 2024 St. Andrew's College. All Rights Reserved. 15800 Yonge Street, Aurora, ON L4G 3H7 Canada