Robotics Video

Robotics 2013 from Brenda Beatty on Vimeo.

SQ Officier visit

On April 2^nd, a member of the Sûreté Québec Police Service, Karine Michaud, visited the grade sixes to speak about choices we’ll be facing as we move into high school. Ms. Michaud works at St. Pat’s, QHS, and Perreault High Schools. She talked to us about some of her experiences with students and illegal drugs, why people take them, and how it`s hard to stop taking drugs. We learned that cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, even energy drinks contain drugs. She suggested that we prepare ahead of time for when someone might offer of drugs. She showed us 7 ways to say no to people who offer drugs, for example, by sticking with friends who also want to say no. She explained that drugs cause physical, legal, and mental consequences for people who use them. They can damage your brain while it is growing by burning cells or preventing cells from growing. It can make you sick and get addicted so you can never stop. You can get a criminal record. She talked about how just trying once is a bad idea. Ms. Michaud said that we should tell an adult if we see people with drugs so that they can get help.

By Malorie Dion

Robotics Competition

On Friday April 5^th, four lucky students were allowed to attend to the Robotics competition held at the Musée de la Civilization. There were many teams over there, 27 teams from primary and 18 from secondary. Every team had their robot built when they arrived and were ready to program. We had spent weeks trying different models before deciding that the tank model would work the best. The challenge was to carry four different 1.5 kg bricks to four different places on the mat and you had to be careful not to bump into walls or roll off the mat. You had to use a light sensor to deposit the brick in the right place. If you got the the four programs perfectly the maximum you could get was 1200 points. We had two tries, the first time we got only 300 points, then checked our program figured out the problem and fixed it. On the second try we got 1175 points. With that performance, Holland School finished 2^nd at the robotics regional competition with a total of 1475 points.

Our robot, Spike, didn't let us down!

By: Olivier Perreault