St. Stanislaus Robotics Team Ranks in the top 50 Worldwide

St. Stanislaus’ Robotics Team is just two years old, but already they rank 50th out of 10,000 teams
worldwide.

In April, the 6-member team travelled to Louisville, KY to compete in their second VEX IQ World
Championship. They were one of only three teams to qualify from Massachusetts. Eighth Grade student
Ryan Saucier said; “The World competition was a great real-world experience. Last year, we were in over
our heads. This year, we earned the world’s respect”. They competed against 78 other teams in the
Science Division and finished in 8 th place.

It has been a lot of work to get to this point. Justin Silva, grade 8, shared; “We trained more than we
ever expected, starting in July and meeting twice a week for practices. It was worth it, though. It really
paid off in the end. Worlds was really fun.” They finished in first place in their opening two competitions
this year which qualified them for Regionals. At the 2018 VEX IQ Ringmaster Southern New England
Regionals they won the Design Award which qualified them for Worlds.

According to Mark Falcon, team coach; “The robot is designed to collect plastic rings using a conveyor
belt. After collecting at least 6 rings the robot will then use an arm that the rings are stored on to then
dump them onto Vertical posts. The team scores points on the number of rings placed on the posts and
whether or not the rings are of uniform color.” Two teams work together to correctly place the most
rings before time runs out.

Through participating in robotics students learn not only engineering and programing, but also problem
solving and team work. Sixth grader Connor Gendron said; “Everybody did their part in designing,
building, programming and driving our robot. We went through lots of design ideas for each function.”
The Robotics Education & Competition (REC) Foundation who sponsors VEX IQ competitions hope that
students who participate will have an increased desire to pursue careers in STEM fields. Competitions
also serve to broaden student’s exposure to other cultures and allows them to interact with peers from
around the world. Zoe Millis, grade 7, spoke of her experience; “We got to compete with teams from
Ecuador, New Zealand, China, Louisiana and Wisconsin. We even competed with a team whose family
was traveling the US in an RV for the year.”

For the St. Stanislaus Robotics team this spring marks the end of an era as four of their founding
members are graduating. Never ones to shy from competition, the team looks forward to inviting new
students to join them in their quest to return to worlds for a third time next year.

To learn more visit www.saintstanislaus.com or contact Jean Willis at (508)674-6771 or
jwillis@saintstanislaus.com.

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