{"id":13535,"date":"2016-03-02T17:39:55","date_gmt":"2016-03-02T22:39:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=13535"},"modified":"2016-03-02T17:39:55","modified_gmt":"2016-03-02T22:39:55","slug":"st-max-students-take-reins-of-police-bomb-robot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/st-max-students-take-reins-of-police-bomb-robot\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Max students take reins of police bomb robot"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mackenzie Valdez is at the controls. <\/p>\n

With a few flicks of the finger, she takes firm command, guiding the machine around the floor, around obstacles and zeroing in on a few patches of rough terrain. <\/p>\n

She attacks the obstacles with gusto; after all, she\u2019s \u201cdriving\u201d a bomb robot and they\u2019re built tough.<\/p>\n

Valdez could hardly contain her excitement when she left St. Maximilian Kolbe for the day earlier last week for her after school job. When she shared the news with her boss, he too joined in the excitement.<\/p>\n

On Friday, they were ready. They welcomed the media to share in the fun as, with the help of the York Regional Police, the school\u2019s robotics students began test driving the decommissioned robot, a gift from the police. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a bit less scary than our robot,\u201d says Valdez, taking her fingers away from the remote keyboard to answer a few questions. \u201cI see the work that goes into our robot, but this beats up our robot. I know our robot can handle the rough terrain, but I don\u2019t want to break it. This one I know can handle anything I throw at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

And a few things were likely thrown at this relatively small orange robot during its time as a valued member of the York Regional Police arsenal.
\nThe decommissioned robot found its way to St. Max following a chance encounter by Constable Steve Mackenzie, a member of the YRP\u2019s bomb squad. Constable Mackenzie\u2019s son\u2019s attention was captured by a booth featuring the St. Max Robotics Club and he brought his dad over to take a closer look. Then, inspiration struck.<\/p>\n

\u201cI realised we had some older robots we don\u2019t use because we have been fortunate enough to purchase some newer ones,\u201d Mackenzie explains. \u201cThe robot we\u2019ve donated is 12 years old and here we are, able to see what [the students] are able to do and it is amazing. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are fortunate to have the ability to essentially hand over this robot from the police so they can take it apart, look at it and put it back together, understand the engineering and what goes into this robot so when they build their own next year, it can assist them in the build.\u201d
\nWhen Mackenzie approached teacher Steve Miguel about a possible donation, he \u201cjumped\u201d at the chance on behalf of his team.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe students are ecstatic about it because they were able to break down the components to see how it works,\u201d says Miguel. \u201cThey can actually see a robot that is used for a purpose in real life as opposed to just building a robot for competition. By seeing the different components, they will be able to make sure their robot can do the specific tasks they need it to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thankful for the Police\u2019s contribution, Miguel says he won\u2019t hesitate to ask next year if there is another robot or two they can take off their hands and this appreciation extended to St. Max Principal Dominic Scuglia who said a donation like this goes a long way towards the school\u2019s program.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t appreciate the amount of money that is required to be able to provide this kind of opportunity and experience to kids,\u201d he says. \u201cThese kids not only work seven days a week \u2013 and often 18 hours a day \u2013 on these robots, but they also have to go out and solicit sponsorship from the communities. Fortunately, we have been very lucky to get various businesses to donate funds to help make our dream come true, to build these robots so we can be competitive with the other robots across the province and country.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor York Regional Police to come in and offer us their robots just enhances our opportunities to make our program better. This is an excellent partnership, so the kids are able to make the connections between the work the York Regional Police do and the competition our robots are involved in.\u201d
\nFor Constable Mackenzie, these are very important connections to draw. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is important to have the ability to have these relationships built with some of the students and the teachers,\u201d he says. \u201cIt is going to go far in regards to what our involvement in the community is, our ability to interact with the students in an environment like this, as opposed to some of the other situations they have heard about with their friends, maybe some not-so-positive situations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel blessed to be where I am and to see this type of machine [in action]. I would pay to be here!\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mackenzie Valdez is at the controls.
\nWith a few flicks of the finger, she takes firm command, guiding the machine around the floor, around obstacles and zeroing in on a few patches of rough terrain. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13517,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/2016-03-03-03.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-3wj","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-03 23:17:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}