The dates for the North Bay Robotics Regional Event are set.
On March 29th and 30th, the city hosts 35 high school teams from across Ontario that will bring their robots to North Bay to see who has the best student-made robot.
Co-chair Laura Piche says this is the sixth year that North Bay is hosting the regional event and the city is expecting anywhere from 950 to 1,000 students plus their mentors.
Piche says North Bay will again have Team 1305 taking part.
The team gave the audience a taste of what the public can see next month when it ran the robot through a series of events during the official launch of the upcoming competition on Thursday at Nipissing University.
Piche says North Bay has had some very successful teams in the past with some qualifying to go on to the world championships.
“North Bay should be very proud,” she said.
“1305 is a very competitive and successful team. They’ve done great things for robotics and their outreach in the community is very stellar.”
The students have six weeks to create their robots which then go through a series of exercises over the two-day competition.
The out-of-town students begin arriving Wednesday and Thursday to set things up including having their robots inspected and getting the lay of the land as Piche puts it.
This year’s event has a cross-section of schools coming in from across Ontario including several from Northern Ontario.
Among the northern schools are teams from Sudbury, Timmins, Thunder Bay, Kapuskasing and Wikwemikong on Manitoulin Island.
Piche says the size of the teams can vary by a great deal.
“Some teams can have as many as 20 to 80 kids and then others have six students,” she said.
The winning team that goes onto the national championships is actually an alliance of three teams.
The robotics competition takes place in the gym at Nipissing University and it’s free to the public.