Tech & Innovation
High School Robotics Team Qualifies for Nationals
An Oakville-based high school robotics team is headed to national finals after winning regional qualifiers with their autonomous AI-driven recycling robot.
By Emma Morgan | 2025-09-10 11:00
In a noisy gymnasium filled with metal parts and cheering students, the OakBots—Oakville High School’s robotics team—clinched first place at the regional FIRST Tech Challenge, securing their ticket to the national finals in Calgary this spring.
The team’s entry, a sleek, AI-guided robot named CycLOOP, impressed judges with its ability to sort and recycle materials autonomously. Built over four months of late-night coding and trial-and-error engineering, the robot consistently outperformed opponents on both speed and precision.
“It’s basically a smart recycling plant on wheels,” said team captain Nia Chopra, a Grade 12 student with aspirations in mechatronics. “We trained it to recognize plastic, metal, and paper using a vision sensor and a custom machine learning model.”
The competition tested not only mechanical skills but also team collaboration. OakBots divided responsibilities among hardware engineers, coders, and outreach coordinators. “It’s more like a start-up than a school club,” joked advisor and physics teacher Mr. Wallace.
CycLOOP’s standout moment came during the semifinals, when it rerouted mid-run to avoid a spilled bin from a rival team—an action not pre-programmed, but learned through adaptive training. Judges called it “an elegant example of real-world AI in practice.”
OakBots also earned points for community impact, having conducted STEM workshops at local elementary schools and built mini-recycling bots from scrap parts for demonstration. Their outreach portfolio contributed to their overall win.
Funding for the team comes from a mix of school support, parent boosters, and local business sponsors. A recent partnership with a Burlington engineering firm provided the students access to industrial-grade prototyping tools, accelerating their build timeline.
“They’re not just building robots—they’re building futures,” said Halton Regional Chair Anne Martin, who attended the event. “This kind of hands-on learning prepares them for jobs we can’t even fully imagine yet.”
The team now faces the challenge of transporting their gear cross-country while refining their code and mechanics under pressure. “We’re optimizing our object recognition system,” said software lead Ethan Park. “And we’ve already redesigned the arm to shave off 0.3 seconds per lift.”
For the students, the goal isn’t just victory—it’s validation. “We’re proving that kids from a public high school in Oakville can compete on a national stage,” said Chopra. “That feels huge.”