On Thursday, April 24, 2025, our school, Holy Name of Mary College School, hosted our annual Spring Cafe Concert, and Ursula was at the front and centre! She performed during the opening act, collecting phones from our drama class, playing unhappy campers while the choir sang. We provided a memorial opening to the concert, which was well-received by the audience.
Our team also hosted an informative concession stand at our Spring Cafe concert to help spread awareness about our team and all the accomplishments we’ve achieved throughout the season. We handed out flyers and displayed posters with key information about our all-girls’ Robotics FRC Team 7659. Since 2019, our team has expanded to over 50 members in the 2025 season, representing over 40% of the high school. Our posters highlighted how we integrate FIRST into our school’s curriculum by using robotics to demonstrate real-world applications of classroom concepts. We also shared how students are given opportunities to lead and participate in outreach events, both within HNMCS and in the broader community. It was a great opportunity to showcase who we are and everything we’ve accomplished.
On team 7659, we heavily value the arts and work to integrate them into our team and school community. We understand that the arts inspire creativity, empathy, and expression, allowing us to enrich our lives and the lives of those around us. This is why we have our robot participate in the school’s concerts every year: to give students a chance to integrate arts and science in a meaningful, tangible way. Not only do we provide students in the robotics team with this opportunity, but we also encourage the broader student body. The robot in the Spring Cafe was worked on by the ICS3U computer science class. By integrating FIRST into the curriculum, we can foster hands-on learning, technical growth, and creative problem solving. Students can apply classroom knowledge in real-life scenarios.
Our students use the software development tool Visual Studio Code, or VS Code for short. VS Code is a powerful and flexible software that is used in professional settings, while still being easy enough for students to learn to code from the bottom up. While VS Code supports a number of different programming languages, our robot is coded in Java. To assist with the coding process, programming aids, such as WPILib, are helpful. WPILib is the standard robotics software library for FIRST teams, it is a library providing essential classes and utilities needed when interacting with robot hardware.
Simona, Admin Lead
Zoe and Racquel 7659 members
HNMCS Robotics Team 7659 