The Formation

It's been well over a decade since a homely and unassuming high school called Woburn CI, nestled in Toronto, first made their famous robotics team. It was the year 1994 when a small company of curious students and teachers united under the common goal of understanding the mechanics and challenge of building robots. Certainly a completely new experience for this intrepid band of youthful pioneers, it was also a challenge they were more than willing to accept. As they quickly found, there was an abundance of creative energy present, but an inability to harness this force. The newly formed robotics club attempted to design and manufacture a robotic hand on their own, in addition to some smaller projects, but it was the opportunity to compete in a national robotics competition where the group really came together.

The competition, known as Canada FIRST, was the starting point from which unexpected heights were to be reached; here was the birth of a team that would not only win two national championships, but also proceed to represent Canada in the biggest high school robotics competition on the planet, US FIRST. Woburn Robotics (then known by the name Team Canada Robotics) is the first of currently-active non-American teams to compete in the US FIRST robotics competition, which paved the way for other international teams to participate in what is now known simply as FIRST. Since it's inception, Team 188 has been instrumental in the formation of over 20 teams and the Canadian Regional venue, in addition to receiving some of the highest regional awards given out by FIRST. There is now representation from several countries at the FIRST robotics competition where around one thousand teams compete against each other for international recognition.

When the team initially entered Canada FIRST, both students and teachers had no idea of what to expect. Little was known about the strength of the other competitors or the difficulty of the national competition itself. Even with this uncertainty, the thought of competing at a high level and the possibility of winning the national championship was incentive enough to persist. It still is, but only now, the stakes are higher. We are now on our sixteenth year, this year being our thirteenth year competing in FIRST. We now try another tough challenge and are excited to tackle it.

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