RAP THE SCRAP
In 2016, a team of two Junior High students became a milestone for Zebra Robotics. Nikhil Thiyagarajan and Srijay Mundalur, competing as Cubic Potatoes, were the first Zebra Robotics team to ever compete in the World Robot Olympiad (WRO) — and the first team from Ontario to represent Canada on the international stage.
It was hard to get Srijay’s image without his Zen-like meditation pose :-). Here, Nikhil and Srijay pose with a team from Nigeria
Competing in the Robo Mission category, under that year’s theme “Rap the Scrap,” Cubic Potatoes built a robot designed to tackle recycling and waste-sorting challenges through autonomous missions. Their season started strong: a first-place finish at the GTA Regionals in Pickering, followed by another first-place finish at the Canada Nationals in Montreal — a result that earned them a spot on Team Canada and a trip to New Delhi, India for the WRO International finals.
At Internationals, Cubic Potatoes went up against teams from over 55 countries. They came agonizingly close to advancing to the final rounds, missing qualification by just 5 points — a margin that speaks to how competitive the field was, and how much the team had already accomplished just to be standing on that stage.
For a rookie program competing with rookie students, it was an extraordinary debut. Win or lose on the scoreboard, Cubic Potatoes proved that Zebra Robotics teams could compete — and contend — at the highest level of robotics, right from year one.
Learn more about WRO India 2016: wro2016india.org