Dover Bay robots charging up for nationals   

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Dover Bay Robotics instructor Joe Spillman demonstrating the results of a 3D printed robotic foot. (Image Credit: Ian Holmes/NanaimoNewsNOW.)

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Dover Bay Robotics offers a club within the grade 8-12 curriculum, offering students resources to expand their ideas and enter competitions. 

With robotics becoming more mainstream in a variety of commercial applications, Spillman said his classroom has improved on many fronts since the program launched eight years ago. 

“The class in general has been upgraded with more equipment and more electronics, and this year we were able to get four brand new 3D printers from PAC (Parent Advisory Council), which has been such a huge benefit to the program.” 

Robotics at Dover Bay is much more than simply designing and building robots, Spillman said. 

Computer modelling and coding allow Spillman’s students to combine the worlds of software and robot production. 

“When I’m building projects for my classes, we are able to use the 3D printers and kids can model things online, and they can see what they’re making right away, and their eyes light up.” 

Dover Bay Robotics Club members headed to Toronto for the May 28 and 29 competition are a trio of grade 12 students: Haitao Yuan, Thomas Grounds and Jack Bannister, as well as ninth grade student Cody Croft. 

The team excelled at regionals at Wellington Secondary and last month at provincials in Abbotsford on the strength of three robots: two tele-operated and one autonomous bot. 

Croft said they excelled in a contest called ‘Fuses’ in Abbotsford. 

“We were one of only a few teams who were able to pull out all of the fuses and put in all the new ones in the correct order fairly repeatedly; that led us to success at provincials.” 

Another robot created by the club members successfully cleared debris and evacuated a mannequin out of a course, made to represent a factory.

Bannister said identifying problems and properly solving them is a huge part of excelling in robotics. 

In fact, Bannister and Robotic Club colleagues have deconstructed their robots to create even better versions of what they’ve made so far. 

“Improving a robot is something that’s going to happen at every step of the way; looking at each of the components and seeing what can be improved and what doesn’t need to be there in the first place,” Bannister said. 

Yuan said Dover Bay’s Robotic Club is the kind of specialty programming which makes a big difference in a lot of students’ lives, including his. 

“If I wasn’t doing robotics right now, after school every day I’d probably go home and sleep or play video games. I think having these specialized programs is important for high school kids to kind of know what they want to do in life.” 

Grounds, who has been part of the Dover Bay Robotics community for a few years, said he wasn’t entirely sure if robotics would lead to future career aspirations. 

However, he credits the program for offering clarity for his post-secondary and career aspirations. 

“It’s helped me really know that I want to become an engineer and go to UBC,” Grounds said. 

The club is attempting to raise $12,000 to cover the expenses of the four students and instructor Joe Spillman at the upcoming national competition in Toronto, which you can contribute toward here.

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