OAKVILLE, ON, April 19, 2017 /CNW/ - Approximately sixty FIRST Robotics Canada teams battled their robots this past weekend at the Ontario Robotics Championship in Mississauga, in the hopes of securing entry to the annual World Championships to be held in St. Louis, Missouri in late April. Siemens Canada is supporting 10 of those qualifying teams in making the trip to the Championship by way of grants totaling $20,000 to help subsidize competition costs.
In addition to the grants, Siemens Canada also commits $30,000 annually to sponsor five high school robotics teams in Ontario and one in Québec. Siemens volunteer mentors from a variety of disciplines support the teams. In 2017, Siemens employees volunteered as judges at 12 FIRST Robotics competitions across Canada.
"By supporting these inspiring students financially and through mentoring, Siemens Canada is proud to empower and enable the young people who will shape Canada's future," said Joris Myny, SVP, Digital Factory and Process Industries & Drives, Siemens Canada.
FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) is an intense STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) challenge for high school students. Within strict rules and with limited resources and time limits, teams of 25 students or more raise funds, design a team brand, hone teamwork skills, and build and program robots to perform prescribed tasks against a field of competitors. Built from scratch in only six weeks, the robots compete in a series of high intensity "robo-sports" at competitions across Canada.
"FIRST Robotics Canada is grateful for this team funding from Siemens Canada," says Mark Breadner, President of FIRST Robotics Canada. "Teams are in great need of support to participate on the world stage so we're absolutely thrilled that these grants will help them compete at one of the biggest robotics competitions in the world."
For the 2017 competition challenge, FIRST STEAMWORKS, students had only six weeks to develop custom, 120-pound robots that collect fuel, install gears, and climb structures to accumulate points. View the STEAMWORKS competition video HERE.
These FIRST Robotics Canada Ontario teams will receive grants from Siemens Canadai:
For more information on FIRST Robotics please visit: firstroboticscanada.org.
About Siemens Canada
Siemens Canada is a leading technology partner that has stood for engineering excellence, innovation, quality and reliability for more than 100 years. Siemens' expertise in the fields of electrification, automation and digitalization helps make real what matters to Canada, delivering solutions for sustainable energy, intelligent infrastructure, healthcare and the future of manufacturing. One of the world's largest producers of energy-efficient, resource-saving technologies, Siemens is a foremost supplier of power generation and power transmission solutions and a pioneer in infrastructure solutions as well as automation, drive and software solutions for industry. The company is also a leading provider of medical imaging equipment and laboratory diagnostics as well as clinical IT. The company has approximately 5,000 employees, 44 offices and 15 production facilities from coast-to-coast. Sales for Siemens Canada in fiscal 2016 (ended September 30), were $3.1 billion CAD. Further information is available at http://www.siemens.ca
i Grants to be disbursed by FIRST Robotics Canada pending official enrollment by each team in the St. Louis competition.
SOURCE Siemens Canada Limited
Contacts for journalists: Ann Adair, VP Communications, Siemens Canada, Phone: 416.567.7831, E-mail: [email protected], Follow us on Twitter at: twitter.com/siemenscanada
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