Friday, April 19, 2024 5 Brooklin Town Crier A local community robotics club, Payload 9621, comprised of students from Brooklin and Sinclair High Schools, has begin to make its mark. This brand new team of grade 9 to 12 students finished 50th out of 140 teams in Ontario at a recent province-wide competition. So impressive was their debut after just a few months that another team gave the group its BOOST Award that included a gift certificate to Studica which supples robotics parts and supplies. It all began with a Facebook post by Brooklin's Suzanne Diamond who wanted to found a community robotics club to fuel her son's passion for the subject. With Sinclair discontinuing its own robotics club, she and her son gathered seven like-minded students from the two schools. They spent hours in basements and garages building and coding their robot Harold. Strong Result They entered a FIRST ROBOTICS event in Hamilton some months back, cutely named the STEMley Cup. (STEM in the school system stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics). That first event featured their being chosen to be part of a three-team collaborative alliance. They placed third in the semi-finals. Founded in 1989 by inventor Dean Kamen, FIRST® (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a global nonprofit organization that prepares young people for the future through a suite of inclusive, team-based robotics programs for ages 4-18 with different levels based on age. High school participants call it "the hardest fun you'll ever have." Under strict rules, limited time and resources, teams are challenged to raise funds, design a team "brand," hone teamwork skills, and build and program industrial-size robots to play a difficult field game against like-minded competitors. Each season ends with an exciting FIRST Championship. Crescendo is the game for the 2024 FIRST Robotics Competition. The game is themed around music and involves two alliances consisting of three teams each competing to perform various tasks, including shooting rings known as Notes into goals that looks like speakers and amps then hanging their robots on chains at center stage by the end a match. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=9keeDyFxzY4 Local Accolades The team entered a district event at Durham College to further enhance Harold's capabilities. The team won the event as well as garnering accolades with the Rookie Inspiration Award which earned them a return trip to Mississauga in early April for the provincials. For more information: Webpage: https://9621.ca/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/9621_payload/ New Robotics Team Makes Its Mark Words...Words...Words... Whitby Needs Action...Action...Action Premier Ford: Get Us the Hospital Planning Grant! It's The Right Thing To Do