History of the WCRG

By Craig Maynard

The Western Canadian Robot Games has it roots as a term project for a class of Computer Engineering Technology students at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology ( Calgary, Alberta, Canada ) back in 1990.  In an effort to motivate the students in the area of digital design, I threw the challenge out to create a SUMO Wrestling Robot.  To my surprise, students from other classes, then other institutions, wanted to join in! 

Our first contest took place  at SAIT in 1991, and consisted of a dozen or so remote control SUMO robots, and one autonomous SUMO.

In 1992, the event was enlarged to include Atomic Hockey as a "home-grown" event, and drew enough competitors to completely fill the atrium at SAIT, and was beginning to draw quite a bit of media attention and walk-in crowd.

1993 and 1994 saw the event move to the largest lecture theatre at SAIT, and continue to attract people from around the continent.  The contest still focussed primarily on Atomic Hockey and SUMO as the main events, but now featured many exhibit booths and robot-related displays.

During May 1995, the robot contest grew to take over SAIT's double gymnasium, and included BEAM events, PINBOT, and the Extinguisher in it's line-up.   The number of contestants continued to climb to over 100 and the exhibitors and displays filled a 10,000 square foot area!

May 1996 and 1997 continued to see us in the double-gymnasium at SAIT, and the contest now had been recognized as a consistent and high-quality robot contest, as large or larger than any in the world.  Over 12 major events, and a thousand people showed up to make it an exciting and entertaining technology festival.  The contest was held simultaneously with the annual CO2 racer contest and the Calgary Regional Computer Programming Challenge.

During November 1998, the Western Canadian Robot Games moved to the Calgary Science Center for a scaled down event.  SUMO, Atomic Hockey, BEAM, and the Extinguisher were the only events.  The show was run simultaneously with a large LEGO event.

1999 saw the WCRG return to SAIT, where it continued to offer our competitors and audience a professional, high profile event celebrating robotics and high-technology.

The year 2000 saw our "Millennium Games" where we simultaneously hosted our event and the BEAM Olympics in the Main Gym at SAIT.  This event was the first year we had received generous sponsorship from "Alberta Science and Innovation".  This was also our first event where t-shirts and full colour production posters were created.  It had -re-shaped all subsequent events.

2001 saw the formation of the Eastern Canadian Robot Games in Toronto... a duplication of all the events are rulesets used in our contest.  It also saw the creation of this society:  The "Western Canadian Robotics Society" whose purpose was to promote robotics and provide resources for the continuation of the robotgames.

The robotgames moved to the Atrium in the Heart building at SAIT this year where it remained during through to 2005.

2004 was a particularly busy year for our organization.  We had worked with two Calgary teams on the FIRST robotics competition and introduced Western Canada to the First Lego League by hosting a very exciting event in Feb.  Our own robot games scaled down a bit by removing the BEAM events, which were suffering from poor attendance, and introduced a new contest:  "The Minesweeper".  We had also ran an encore First Lego League "mission mars" event.

In October of 2004 we took up residence at the Calgary Aerospace Museum where we began meeting weekly on Saturday Mornings for our RBM ( Robot Builders Meetings ) .  This is in addition to the monthly regular society meeting.

Our society continues to evolve and meet the needs of amateur robotisists in Western Canada!  Join us.. we look forward to seeing you at the next Western Canadian Robot Society/Games!