We love to celebrate the big stories in our church family’s lives and this week we celebrate with Connor and Hudson Jantzi who participated in the First Lego League Ontario West Provincial Championships, hosted by FIRST Robotics Canada.

The focus of this event was to bring 38 of the most innovative solutions based on a city shapers theme (making cities more sustainable and accessible) together in one location, to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges. Teams of nine-to-14-year-old participants proposed and created a prototype solution to an urban problem. Another component is how well their Lego robots – designed, built and programmed with Lego Mindstorms technology – are able to accomplish specific tasks. The judges then selected the three (3) most innovative solutions to represent Ontario in the Global Innovation Award competition, the winner of which will receive $20,000 to make their innovation a reality.

Connor and Hudson’s team, the Wild Goats, proposed the Smart Sorter Recycling Project – a robot which sorts recycling materials. Their project won the Ontario Innovation Celebration award, recognizing the team’s innovative and creative solution to a recycling challenge. In addition, their robot and proposal gave them the Champion’s Award third place which moves them on to a Global Innovation Competition which, going from past years, could take them anywhere from Arkansas to Greece.

Congratulations to Connor and Hudson, and coach dad Jason Jantzi, and the other members of the Wild Goats team for their great achievement and we look forward to finding out where they will be taking their robot for the Global competition!

Watch this CTV news clip about the competition and, if you watch carefully at the 36 second mark, you’ll catch a brief glimpse of Hudson.