About UsStudents Emerging as Leaders
We are FIRST Robotics team, Merge Robotics; a team of high school students in the Ottawa community, founded in the 2015-2016 season. Joined by industry mentors (Engineers, Business/Project Planners, Scientists, and Computer Programmers), we build a robot from scratch, each year, in only 8 weeks! We then take our robot to compete at FIRST Robotics Competitions (FRC)!
This year we have 45 students from 12 different schools (English public, French public, English catholic, Private school, and online school) and 15 mentors. Our members come from over 900 km² in the Ottawa region. In our 8 years, 100% of our alumni have graduated high school and have been accepted to a post-secondary. At post-secondary, 96% of our Alumni studied in a STEM-related field.
We are a community-based team with no ties to any specific high school. While this configuration has its advantages (more inclusivity, drawing members from our wider community); we hope one day to have secure financial funding and access to a permanent build space.
History
Prior to 2015, there were no community robotics teams in Ottawa. Some students who attended All Saints High School were able to join team 2994, Aztech. However, for the 2015-2016 season, the team was not able to compete. Ensuring students would have a space to learn, a few mentors from 2994 created Ottawa West Community Robotics (OWCR) and started our team 2706, Merge Robotics. As the first community robotics team in Ottawa, Merge Robotics grew quickly from its original 10 members to include students from over 16 high schools. Since 2016, we have continued to accept students from across the Ottawa area, no matter the school. None of our mentors are teachers, so students learn the skills and get experience working alongside industry professionals.