Four sixth-grade students from Keystone Elementary School are headed to Texas for the VEX Robotics Worlds Championships.
For one team, it was a classic case of going from last to first, and for the other it was a continued success story.
VEX Robotics is a program for elementary through university students who must design, build, program and drive a robot to complete the challenge.
“We didn’t do so well with our first robot,’ said Sweitzer. “It was kind of broken. We got last place.”
Determined to improve, the team decided to build a new “bot.”
“We tore apart our old one and built a new one,” Sweitzer said. “It took a few hours.”
She said that when the team went to the Cranberry competition the code kept turning the robot to the right.
“We did get eighth place in skills and we qualified for states,” said Mount.
At states, the team overcame those problems and finished first in team skills and second in team drive, which qualified them for the world championships that will take place in Dallas.
“They basically went from last to first,” said Keystone robotics instructor Ryan Smith.
Smith said the VEX code is similar to the code he teaches at Keystone in his class.
For the Double Trouble team of twin sisters Allie and Addie Kline, it was a matter building on last year’s success.
“We didn’t know what robot to build last year so this year we decided to build our “bot” to meet the requirements of the game,” said Allie Kline. “We knew that we would be required to pick up blocks and put them in a container.”
Addie Kline said they tried two variations using the directions provided by VEX.
“They didn’t work very well. We built a “bot” that was a variation on the original and it worked,” Addie Kline said. “It can pick up eight to 10 cubes and it runs smoothly,” she added.
“The coding was set to run on smooth surfaces and that was a problem at Cranberry because the boards were uneven,” Addie said.
The sisters won the judge’s award at Keystone and the teamwork championship. They were in first place in teamwork at the Cranberry competition when they suffered a malfunction in the finals.
At the state championship, they won first place in teamwork and the design award that is based on how well the robot performs.
The sisters did have a recurring problem, however.
“We had to have an engineering notebook and last year we did it the night before the competition,” said Allie Kline. “We thought this year we would make it ahead of time but we accidentally did it again because we lost it this year so the night before we had to do a new one.”
Keystone School District Superintendent Michael Hall said the students learn several skills in the VEX program, including problem solving.
The school district is paying for teachers and students to travel to Dallas, but the robotics club is also seeking donations for the trip.