RMT Robotics, a CimcorpOy company that integrates turnkey robotic gantry-based order fulfilment and provides tire handling solutions for optimized operational efficiencies, has announced that its employees are preparing elementary, secondary and high school students of a local Ontario school for the annual FIRST Lego League and for the FIRST Robotics Competitions.
For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) provides hands-on and robotic challenges that are team based to drive interest in science and technology among young minds. Local mentoring teams guide the participating teams during the different stages of FIRST robotics challenges by providing them with engineering experience and technical expertise.
Over the past five years, RMT employees have lent their support to a number of age-centric FIRST robotic teams. The mentoring program at the Elementary School level has Matt Alderson, RMT Engineering Manager coaching the F.L.L team GARF which includes eight students from Guardian Angels Catholic Elementary School. The GARF team creates robots from Lego pieces while also exploring real-life engineering issues concerning food safety. The team which participated as defending champions at the F.L.L Food Factor Challenge scheduled for Dec. 17, 2011, at Niagara College, along with Alderson serves as mentors for the F.L.L. team at St. Thomas School in Waterdown, Ontario.
At the high school level, Alderson began the 20 member “MakeShift Robotics” team 4039, at St. Mary Catholic Secondary School in Dundas, Ontario this year. “MakeShift Robotics” will be competing with their robotic creation at the Waterloo Regional Qualifier scheduled for March 22-24, 2012, at the University of Waterloo.
Mentoring RMT employees includes Rick Trigatti, RMT Manager of Operations who have mentored FIRST team 2056 from Stoney Creek as well as the new 4022 team from Waterdown High School in Ontario. Both mentors and their teams build and program robots over a six weeks period and participate along with their creations in regional and national competitions all through the season. The mentors impart essential job skills within the areas of designing and programming as well as web development, finance and marketing and project management.
In a release, Matt Alderson, RMT Engineering Manager, said, “FIRST competitions are a great way to spark interest in the fields of engineering, science, and technology among students. RMT is proud to be a part of these innovative and exciting programs to support the next generation of robotics engineers.”
Calvin Azuri is a contributing editor for SDNzone. To read more of Calvin’s articles, please visit his columnist page.Edited by
Rich Steeves
