Halifax students win big at world robotics competition

A group of young Halifax students talk about a big award they recently won at a global championship.

The Lego League World Robotic Championships in Houston, Texas, saw more than 50,000 attendees and around 1,000 teams from all over the world.

Four students from Halifax Grammar School walked away with the innovation award for one of their robotic projects.

Eason and Neelan Wong and Michael and Alyssa Cambell spoke with Brianne Foley on CTV Your Morning Atlantic about the competition.

“It was super amazing, it was incredible to see all the teams from around the world,” said Alyssa.

The group won the award for a clear, watertight sphere equipped with a 360-degree camera.

Eason explained the robot “goes to the bottom of an archeological site, waits for the sediment to settle, releases a weight and floats back to the surface.”

He said 360-degree footage isn’t common and their design can be used to map out a full underwater archeological site.

“And we don’t have to kick up sediment with propellers used on ROV, or remote-operated vehicles,” Eason said.

Michael said they came up with the decision after a brainstorming process where they considered many factors.

“We ranked all the different components like, easy to build, technical knowledge needed, costs, and then in the end, Indigenous archeology and underwater archeology came out on top, so we wanted to use both of those in our project,” he said.

They also submitted a square, rolling robot for a different category, which they demonstrated on CTV Your Morning Atlantic.

“My favourite part of this experience was innovating together, working as a team, and just seeing how everything worked,” said Neelan.

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