A $50,000 investment from Imperial Oil has had a huge impact on Mastermind Youth Foundation's programs to help advance youth education in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics).
Foundation President Jacques Villeneuve said the Sarnia company approached the non-profit after its FIRST robotics team, Mixed Métal, completed a successful season last year.
With Imperial Oil's support, Villeneuve said they were able to outfit space at the Lochiel Kiwanis Community Centre with the proper equipment to teach children and youth the skills needed to code and build robots.
"Without the sponsorship, we wouldn't have the LaunchPad Makerspace, which is the main room the high school students use to build the competitive robots," Villeneuve said. "It also allowed us to expand our elementary program to six teams in the FIRST Lego League. We were also able to launch our own local Lego robotics battle box competition to try to bring more STEM opportunities to the community."
Mastermind Youth Foundation launched in 2024 with a single robotics team and has since expanded.
Villeneuve said they currently have a mailing list of 400 families, as many students will return to Mastermind camps and programs.
"With the sponsorship, we were able to grow about 25 per cent, especially in the high school level range," he said. "We were able to launch a mid-tier robotics program with that sponsorship, so we were able to introduce our Lego elementary kids to real robotics prior to them getting into high school with a FIRST Tech Challenge robotics team."
An open house was held on Tuesday so officials with Imperial Oil could see the robotics programming first-hand.
