Taryn Ashby
Robotics teams across the Alachua County Public School (ACPS) District and beyond competed in the annual VEX Robotics Competition (VRC) at Lincoln Middle School on Thursday.
Nearly 250 elementary, middle, and high school students competed to earn a spot and represent the district in the Central/North Florida State Vex competition in March, with a chance to compete at the Worlds Competition in May.
Alachua County had one high school (Buchholz), two middle schools (Abraham Lincoln, Howard W. Bishop) and one elementary school (Wiles) team move on to the statewide competition.
Over 70 teams registered for the competition, where each team demonstrated their skills in developing, building, and operating robots to perform specific tasks in front of a panel of judges.
Students spent several months constructing and perfecting their robots’ abilities and design.
“Once we saw the game for this year’s competition, we took about a month and a half to get our robot ready,” said Montverde Academy High senior Tommy Huynh in an interview. “We spent two weeks building the actual robot, and then the rest of the time was spent tuning and perfecting the robot.”
Huynh’s team calls themselves Flashbang and consisted of a builder, a programmer, a driver and a general assistant.
David Sankey, a robotics teacher at Westwood Middle School, said the teamwork aspect of robotics is an essential lesson for every student participating in the competition.
“You don’t go to the moon by yourself,” he said in an interview. “You have to work on huge teams of people and be part of a machine because that is how you do great things. That is what we are seeing here today and it’s just great.”
In the team competition, groups from different schools partner to earn a combined score in a one-minute round. Communication and teamwork play a crucial role in a team’s success.
About halfway through the one-minute round, teams must switch drivers, the individual holding the remote control.
Teams from elementary and middle school competed in the VEX IQ Competition (VIQC) Slapshot.
This competition is played on a 6-foot by 8-foot field consisting of five dispensers, 45 discs, one fence, and four goal zones.
To score points, two teams must work together to activate a unique mechanism on each dispenser that releases discs. Once they free the discs from a dispenser, they must quickly maneuver as many discs as possible under the fence and into the goal zones.
At the end of the match, a judge tallies the score, and each team receives the same number of points for that round.
This year’s high school game is the VRC Spin Up, a head-to-head game played with two alliances, red and blue, that are made up of two teams— essentially a two versus two game.
There are 60 discs per match, and they can be scored in two high goals located in opposite corners of the field, worth five points. Players must be careful when launching at the high goal because the opposing team’s low goal, which is worth one point, is located underneath the high goal net.
In addition to launching discs, robots can earn points by spinning rollers on the side of the field to the designated team’s color.
“These games and competitions are so important because we do zero engineering in public education except for right here,” Sankey said. “You have to redo, rebuild and reinvite, and that is what robotics is all about. It is about finding a better solution, and that’s what I love about it.”
High School Award Winners
Excellence Award—Base-2 Bobcats from Buchholz High School
Tournament Champions—Metal-Heads from Montverde Academy
Tournament Champions—Base-2 Bobcats from Buchholz High School
The following teams won awards but do not advance to the regionals:
Design Award—Biohazard from Montverde Academy
Robot Skills Champion—Flash-Bang from Montverde Academy
Judges Award—Cowboy Pride from Madison County High School
Middle School Awards
Excellence Award—Drumroll Please from Abraham Lincoln Middle School
Teamwork Champion Award—Drumroll Please from Abraham Lincoln Middle School
Teamwork Champion Award—Nat 20 from Howard W. Bishop Middle School
The following teams won awards but do not advance to the regionals:
Design Award—how do you expect us to pay for this stuff from Westwood
Robot Skills Champion—Drumroll Please from Abraham Lincoln Middle School
Judges Award—FRE SHA VOCA DO from Westwood
Elementary School Awards
Excellence Award—Sigmabots from Cypress Ridge Elementary School
Teamwork Champion Award—GALE from Wiles Elementary
Teamwork Champion Award—Sigmabots from Cypress Ridge Elementary School
The following teams won awards but do not advance to the regionals:
Design Award—Unknown from Wiles Elementary
Robot Skills Champion—Sigmabots from Cypress Ridge Elementary School
Judges Award—Transformer Tiger from Glen Springs
I envy these kids, but it sure looks like they’re having a blast while learning.
Make learning interesting and fun and you’ll have kids EXCITED and TRYING to learn and getting involved. Legitimate competition will provide them even more desire to find new solutions to existing problems. It triggers parts of the brain that leads to increased imagination and problem solving skills. Competition is definitely a source of the original win-win situation.
I was surprised to read that there isn’t any form of engineering taught other than this competition. That could prove to be a big problem for our future.
Maybe the schools could get wider involvement from additional companies for more than just robotics competitions? Robotics engineering, like so many other forms of engineering, is a field that is constantly expanding and consistently lacking in qualified capable participants.