WEST CARLETON – West Carleton’s competitive robotics team is taking their awards ceremony into cyberspace this Saturday (June 27).

Team 2707: Merge Robotics is one of the only competitive robotics teams not affiliated with a high school. It’s a community team serving west Ottawa with several members and volunteers from the West Carleton area.

The team did all the hard work of building their competition robot and unveiled the beauty at the end of last January. Unfortunately, many of the planned competitions, which culminate in a world championship (which the team qualified for in 2018), have been cancelled due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Building a competition robot is still a lot of work for the participants and a huge time commitment for the volunteers. So, the organizers have found a way to honour that effort and present their annual team awards.

“I would like to invite you to the 2019-2020 Merge Robotics virtual Awards Gala this Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m. on twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/mergerobotics2706,” Merge Robotics volunteer mentor and Carp resident Kendra Shaw released in a statement yesterday (June 24). “Each year, Team 2706: Merge Robotics, gets together to review our season, celebrate our accomplishments and recognize some of our outstanding students. Given the global pandemic, this year’s event will be livestreamed to ensure social distancing can be maintained. Join us to hear about our year, how we brought STEM to our community, what we built and how we have been supporting our community through this unique situation. We want to thank you for your continued support and look forward to seeing you in person next year.”