A local student robotics team is pairing up with an engineering society with the goal of giving the students mentorship and exposure to opportunities in engineering.
Orillia’s PF Robotics team was invited to Toronto by engineering society SME to showcase its work at the FABTECH trade show recently, and the team’s coaches, Mike Milliard and Jason Janisse, were brought on as members of the society.
“They want to see the kids succeed as far as we can get them to go,” Janisse told OrilliaMatters. “It’s going to give us access to engineers who are willing to help us solve problems, and also to be role models to the students as well.”
“It opens up a world of resources that we will have at our disposal, so we could easily go ahead and we could get in touch with various engineers in different areas and they can help us out with our design processes,” Milliard added.
Currently made up of elementary school students from Monsignor Lee and Notre Dame Catholic schools, previous PF Robotics teams have won provincial competitions and finished in the top 10 at world championships.
Janisse said organizers and attendees at the recent trade show were impressed with the team’s acuity for robotics.
“A lot of engineers were just sitting there, going, ‘These kids are in grade school.’ One of them (said), ‘What they’re doing right here, this would have been my final project for my engineering degree 25 years ago, and now you’ve got kids in elementary school (doing it).’”
Beyond providing resources to the robotics team, SME is hoping to set up a student chapter of its organization in Orillia to give the students access to even more resources and mentorship.
Formed in 1932, SME works with engineering professionals, educators, and communities to share knowledge and resources to find solutions to issues in the manufacturing industry.
SME Chapter 26 member Bruce Keeling said student chapters are normally set up through post-secondary institutions, and SME will have to “think outside the box” to establish a chapter in Orillia.
“The SME supports anything engineering. Because of what (PF Robotics) has done with these groups, they have been awarded membership in SME,” he said.
“We’re looking at developing a student chapter with them, and it might be called a junior chapter.”
After downsizing the robotics programs through the pandemic, Janisse hopes a PF Robotics club may eventually come back to Patrick Fogarty Catholic Secondary School, as well.
“For the future, we’re hoping to get back into the schools and actually get the high school club going again, as well as running our elementary program,” he said.
