Siemens sponsors six FIRST Robotics student teams in 2016 competition

Jan. 12, 2016 – Siemens Canada and its employees say they are excited to promote learning about technology and manufacturing to Canadian high school students by sponsoring and supporting six FIRST Robotics teams in the upcoming competition: five in Ontario and one in Quebec.

The competition is an intense “real-world engineering” challenge. Under strict rules with limited resources and time constraints, teams of 25 students or more raise funds, design a team “brand,” hone teamwork skills, and build and program robots to perform prescribed tasks against a field of competitors. Built from scratch in only six weeks, the robots compete in a series of high intensity “robo-sports” at events organized throughout Ontario and Quebec.

The 2016 competition challenge First Stronghold was revealed January 9. First Stronghold is a medieval-themed tower defence game in which two alliances of three teams each compete to score points by breaching the opponent’s outer works and capturing the opponent’s tower.

The sponsored teams include:

• Knight Vision from Holy Names Catholic School – Windsor, Ont.
• Chargers from Garth Webb Secondary School – Oakville, Ont.
• Wildebots from Robert Bateman High School – Burlington, Ont.
• The Red Devils from Oakville Trafalgar High School – Oakville, Ont.
• Spartans from Craig Kielburger Secondary School – Milton, Ont.
• Les aigles d’or from École secondaire Honoré-Mercier – Montreal, Que.

In addition to the $30,000 financial sponsorship of the teams, Siemens has provided an in-kind grant of laptops to some teams, which have been refurbished by employee volunteers as part of the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility program. The laptops are preloaded with a free High School Edition of Siemens’ Solid Edge CAD technology software to assist students with the design of their robot.

“The students engaged with FIRST Robotics teams represent the future leaders in Canadian industry and by supporting them we help cultivate an interest and a passion in technological innovation and engineering. This benefits not only our future leaders, but Canadian industry, communities and the country as a whole,” said Joris Myny, SVP, Digital Factory and Process Industries & Drives, Siemens Canada. “We’re honoured to sponsor and assist these high school robotics teams and can’t wait to see the competition results!”

Siemens volunteer mentors from a variety of disciplines will also be supporting the teams with educational talks and technical workshops. Siemens employees will also volunteer as judges at a FIRST Robotics competition.
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