ALT-F4: A Blue Banner Season
Written by James K. and Alina D., Grade 10 Students
FIRST LEGO League Innovation and Robotics Programme
Written by Benjamin McCord, FLL Robotics Co-ordinator
ALT-F4: A Blue Banner Season
Written by James K. (Media – Writer) and Alina D. (Mechanical and Media – Editor),
Grade 10 Students
Humber Polytechnic was an encouraging start to the season for many reasons. It allowed us to grow, and more importantly, allowed us to make tremendous improvements which heavily benefitted us at future competitions.
We started off well and continued to tweak aspects of programming and strategy to refine our gameplay. However, it was a hard-fought battle with us having to look to our incredible strategy and drive team – as well as some luck – for the win! Thanks to our consistency, we also managed to secure our first Quality Design award of the season.
More importantly, Humber Polytechnic was the glue that truly allowed our team to come together and bond for the first time. Moving forward, our first competition allowed us to figure out exactly what we needed to do to strengthen our robot’s performance.
Just a few weeks later, and true to the name of this year’s game, we rebuilt the robot! ALT-F4 arrived at Georgian College with one goal: win. Over the past two weeks, we had completely revamped our robot as a dumper with a wide shooter, allowing it to shoot many balls into the HUB at once. Vanguard’s new design proved itself quickly, but not without a few hiccups along the way.
Throughout the qualifiers, our robot malfunctioned several times due to electrical issues caused by static. By the second day, the robot was functioning and we managed to seed first and become alliance captain 1. We made it through the playoffs undefeated and entered the finals confidently and managed to win once again, earning our second blue banner. This result increased our world placing to 35th out of 3800 teams.
Georgian College event allowed us to test our newly rebuilt robot and gave us confidence for the upcoming provincial championship.
We boarded the bus with aspirations to make this DCMP the best in our team’s history. However, our robot had other plans. Despite our best intentions, we ranked third in our division, becoming the captain of the second alliance. We then started the playoff rounds, which is where the tournament got interesting. Our robot was functioning perfectly thanks to the pit team, which allowed our drive team to implement our game strategy to perfection. This was a full team effort. As underdogs, we prevailed over the number one ranked alliance to bring the division championship home for the first time ever, and it was incredible to see the hard work of the team come to fruition. To win this division we had to compete against some of the top teams in the world.
We then advanced to the Provincial finals where we fought valiantly against some of the best robots (in the top five) in the world. While we came very close to beating them, we unfortunately fell short after two well played matches.
Now we are off to Worlds…stay tuned…
FIRST LEGO League Innovation and Robotics Programme
Written by Benjamin McCord,
FLL Robotics Co-ordinator
ConnecTech Goes Global!
Bayview Glen’s FIRST LEGO League Innovation and Robotics Programme is flying high. ConnecTech, our Ontario Provincial Champions, represented Canada at the FIRST World Festival in Houston—competing among 160 elite teams from over 60 countries.
To learn more about ConnecTech, please visit their website at connectech27757.com, and @connectech27757 on Instagram.
More Tournaments!
Smart Ramen
Smart Ramen will compete at the WPI WAFFLE tournament in Worcester, MA, from June 11 to June 14. They won the 2nd Place Champions’ Award at the Ontario Provincials. This is Smart Ramen’s 3rd International Tournament in 3 years.
To learn more about Smart Ramen, please visit their website at https://smart-ramen-21544.com/
Operation CREAT3
Operation CREAT3 will compete at the Canada Cup at Brock University from June 17 to June 20. They won the 1st Place Core Values Award at Provincials, and will showcase their Innovation Project, Artifact Armada.
Eat. Sleep. Archaeology. Repeat.
Our Grade 5 Team, Eat. Sleep. Archaeology. Repeat., will compete at the Canada Cup at Brock University from June 17 to June 20. They won the 1st Place Innovation Project Award at Provincials, and have been mentoring Grade 4 students in the Winter and Spring.
Winter/Spring FLL Intramurals
FLL Intramurals are underway this Winter and Spring—building skills and sparking early interest in robotics and innovation. Our Intramural teams engage in all of the challenges that our Competitive teams do: Innovation Project, Robot Design and Game, and Core Values. Team Smart Ramen (along with ambitious ESAR members Zoe Lieu and Emmy Chung!) shared their time and experience to lead the teams through their journey.
FLL Supports Girls in STEM
Bayview Glen Is dedicated to promoting girls’ engagement and achievement in STEM. Girls make up more than half of our FLL students.
2026/2027 Competitive Season Tryouts
All students who wish to be considered for membership on a Fall Competitive team must conduct a tryout. Tryouts will begin in late May. More information about tryouts will be coming soon. Please contact FLL programme supervisor Ben McCord (bmccord@bayviewglen.ca) with any questions.