Ola High School’s Vex Robotics teams were strong contenders in the 2020 Vex Robotics State Championship on Saturday, February 8.

  Up against 29 schools from all over the state, the two teams from Ola, the 5203R or ‘Raptor’ team and the 5203P or ‘Python’ team, competed in a day of match-ups that ended in qualifications for the World Competition that will take place in April.

  Of the 60 teams that competed in the State Championship, 17 teams advanced to the World Championship, including one of Ola High School’s robotics teams, 5203R, made up of senior students Tucker MacFarlane, Dalton Bobo, Logan Thornton, Logan Deabenderfer, Hannah Irvin and Caden Kovzel.

  Although eliminated earlier on in the competition, both the 5203R and 5203P teams ended their six qualification matches with a 3-3 record.

  However, despite both teams not advancing to the final two match-up, Ola High School’s 5203R team took home the Excellence Award in the 2020 Vex Robotics State Championship and will move on to compete in the 2020 Vex Robotics World Championship.

  The Excellence Award is given to the Top All-Around Team in the competition.

  During the State Championship award ceremony, the judges commended the 5203R team and praised their “professional interview skills, thorough and well-documented design notebook and overall great performance” throughout the day.

  Christie Schmitt, Ola’s Vex Robotics coach, says that the students did have a rough competition day, but was focused mainly on keeping the student’s spirits up, despite their having to face tough teams. 

  “Today was a lot of motivating them. They had some tough matches, tough pairings. You drive the best you can drive every match and forget about the match that just happened,” said Schmitt. “[Robotics is] highly competitive. There are really strong teams in the state. There are over 250 high school teams. 60 get to come to State, 17 make it to Worlds, which is what they fought to go to today.”

  At the State Championship, teams were paired up to compete against other teams from all over the state in a game scenario with the robots they built and programmed.

  Each year, Vex Robotics releases a new game following the World Championships each April.

  Since April of 2019, the 5203R and 5203P teams have been working to build and program their robots, one for each team, to compete in the Tower Takeover game throughout the school year.

  The Tower Takeover game is played on a 12×12 square field. Two Alliances, one “red” and one “blue,” are made up of two teams each.

  According to the Vex Robotics website, “the object of the game is to attain a higher score than the opposing alliance by placing cubes in towers, or scoring cubes in goals.”

  In the 15 second autonomous period of the game, each of the team’s robots gather as many cubes as possible in the direction to which they are programmed.

  In the 1 minute and 45 second driver controlled period, each of the team’s drivers race to collect cubes, stack them in a tower, double their points and act as a defense against the other teams seeking to gain more cubes.

  5203R coach, Hannah Irvin, explains that the process to build the robots is complex, combining elements of programming, design and strategy to best address the requirements of the game scenario.

  “Everything that you see with that robot, we have to fully come up with the concept, fully build it from the parts we are given and we have to fully program it,” said Irvin. “We are just given the brain which talks to the controller. They have to learn how to drive it, practice and compete.”

  5203P team builder and driver, Cameron Heath, begins designs on the robot and testing out plans over the summer to prepare for the competition season beginning each August.

  “As soon as we get back from Worlds, we immediately start designing new stuff. I’m the builder so, at my house over the summer, I usually do models and different designs just to test. When we get back to school, we start constructing big stuff and finalizing [the plans] for tournaments.”

  Following each competition throughout the school year, the students are able to hone their plans, programming and design components on their robots. This constant refinement takes up a significant amount of time during the school week.

  In addition to the roughly many hours that are spent in the club after school hours, the students often show up for a few hours before school and regularly take work home with them overnight.

  Coach Schmitt expresses that, although Ola’s Vex Robotics teams are actually a club, they are just as much of an extracurricular as any other sports that the students might participate in throughout the school year.

  “It’s really the same as being on a sports team because it is 20 to 30 hours a week after school with them working on robots, working on designs. They go home with them every weekend. It’s still them being stressed out, just like if I was playing on a team sport getting stressed out a game,” said Schmitt. “They’re getting stressed out here, so keeping them calm, making sure they’re motivated, making sure that they’re constantly changing strategies with what’s happening around them; so it’s a lot like coaching a sport, really with making the team feel comfortable with what they’re doing.”

  Following the 5203R team’s win at the State Championship, the students will begin to prepare themselves and their robot for the World Championship, taking place on April 22-25 in Louisville, Kentucky.

  For more information about Vex Robotics, visit www.vexrobotics.com.