Glen Ames robotics team, Guardians of the Future, helps unearth history for FIRST Lego League Challenge competition

By JESSICA SHACKLETON

From the future to the present to the past and back to the future, this year’s Glen Ames Senior Public School robotics team, Guardians of the Future, has found a way to get students interested in archaeology.

The team showed what student life could look like in 2065 if students aren’t introduced to the importance of history and archaeology at a younger age.

In the students’ robotics project, Doc Brown and Marty McFly swiftly arrive in the time-travelling DeLorean on their way to the past. Back in 2025, apparently, students were more interested in Minecraft and screens than learning about archaeology in history class.

Fortunately, the 2025 Glen Ames robotics team created Sniffy, a dog-like robot that can dig up and analyze artifacts. Using Bluetooth, Sniffy finds them and collects information. Users then get to interact directly with the artifacts instead of simply reading or hearing about them. It’s also a lot more fun. 

The team surveyed their fellow students about favourite school subjects and found that history was one of the least popular. They also interviewed multiple archaeologists who said they didn’t become interested in the subject until they were much older.

The research led the robotics team members to realize that students needed to spark an interest sooner rather than later when it comes to history.

And so Doc and Marty hurried back to the future and saw a student and his dog, also named Sniffy, invested in archaeology and appreciating history, thanks to this technology created by the Glen Ames students.

The Guardians of the Future team is set to put their project on display and take part in the FIRST LEGO League Challenge qualifier this Sunday, Dec. 7, at David and Mary Thomson Collegiate Institute in Scarborough.      

The FIRST Lego League Challenge introduces students to engineering and robotics and allows them to analyze real-world challenges using teamwork, problem-solving, and presentation skills. Teams must come up with a product that isn’t already available on the market.

This year, the theme for the competition is Unearthed. The competing school robotics teams build the coding and design the product based on the theme.

The Glen Ames wanted to stand out with their mini-digging tool, and there’s no one in the world who doesn’t like dogs, they said.

Glen Ames robotics teams have done well in competitions in the past, even going to the International Championships at Legoland in California. The current team consists of Grade 8 students who began their training last year.

It’s taken many lunch periods, along with before and after school hours, to get Sniffy and the Guardians of the Future team ready for this Sunday’s competition. Along with demonstrating how the physical product works, teams at the competition are also expected to make their presentation to the judges in an innovative and charismatic way, hence the star-studded cast that includes Doc and Marty from Back to the Future.

Members of this year’s Glen Ames team are Zac C., Amelia C., Noah A., Thomas S., Piper S., Nazem S., Ava K., Rhiannon B., James A., and Will J. The team’s coach is teacher Luke Martin.