After half a year of silence, we have finally returned to fight on for another season of VEX robotics! A lot has happened since our last post, so I will briefly go over what’s happened:
ONTARIO PROVINCIALS:
In a qualifying event for the World Championship in California, all the best teams from Ontario were brought together to fight for their spot. Although we had already previously secured our spot, the chance to practice for the Worlds against the best in the province is too much to pass up. And so, we found ourselves up early at Governor Simcoe Secondary School in Saint Catherine’s, ready for our final Canadian competition. The qualification matches passed quickly and with limited stress, leaving us undefeated in first place with 280 sp’s heading into the elimination matches. Our alliance with teams 472A and 356B worked to great effect, earning us the Tournament Champion’s award, and later, the Design Award.
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP:
After a month of adjustments and planning, we headed off to Anaheim for what would be our final competition of the year: The World Championship. As with every year previous, day 1 is a day of downtime. After registering and having our robot inspected, we tried to make the most of it. The next days had us fighting for our lives against the best teams in the world in the qualifiers. By the end, we were 8 wins with 2 losses and 309 sp’s, putting us (just barely) in 8th place. We chose our alliance of teams 177X and 6966B, and steeled ourselves for the upcoming elimination matches. Together, we pulled through to the semi finals, but were eliminated by teams 44, 2158M, and 40A. We were given the divisional “Build award,” and then later we were honored to be presented with the ‘Inspire Award!” Overall, our third world championships experience was a great success, and we looked forward to the next game that was announced: VEX Skyrise.
End of one season, start of another:
The end of a VEX season is always a bittersweet time for us. Participation in VEX robotics requires that you been in high school, and every year we have members graduate, and move on to the next stage of their lives. This year we said goodbye to the head of our media team Sam Rasmussen, and Our Head Builder Amanda Rampertab. We wish you the best of luck in their your future endeavors! As for us, we have started on the newest season of VEX robotics: Skyrise. This new game is very unique and poses many difficult tasks for the robot to complete, and we have a lot of work ahead of us. Here’s to another great season of robotics fun!
We’ll see you on the field!
-The Pilons
