Eighth grade students Olivia K. and Lawrence T. have been accepted into the nationally-renowned VEX V5 competition for middle school students. A third member of their team, Anna L. from Harvard Westlake, will also be joining them. VEX Robotics comprises over 20,000 teams from 50 countries playing in over 1,700 competitions across the globe, and Olivia, Lawrence, and Anna are intent to win it all. 

VEX Robotics is an educational AI robotics competition that reflects student science and engineering skills. It encourages creativity, leadership, problem solving and teamwork, as teams choose their alliances early on in an effort to work collaboratively while scoring as many points as possible.

“You have an alliance team every round, and we go against other alliances. [This coordination] teaches us to build strategies that work well and can effectively win our matches,” said Lawrence T.

This year’s objective of the game, called ‘High Stakes,’ is to attain a higher score than the opposition on a 12-foot by 12-foot arena within two timed rounds. In the first 15 seconds, the bots act autonomously, while the robots are team-controlled during the final one minute and forty-five second period. Alliances that function as teams can gain points by:

• Hanging blue and red plastic rings that are arranged in a pattern on colored wall stakes, blue and red indicating the team. Red rings go on red wall stakes while blue rings go on blue wall stakes.
• Placing plastic rings on the five yellow and black movable goals, which allow either color of ring before the robots move them into + and – zones which alter the value of the rings.
• Moving a mobile goal that holds the opponents team’s rings so their points are subtracted.
• Climbing the yellow and black jungle-gym platform, as the higher climb enhances a team’s  score.
• Scoring the most points during the autonomous period is rewarded by additional points.

According to Olivia, teams are motivated to attend VEX because it offers a larger competition with stellar organization and premiere competition.

“VEX is a much bigger community, and you meet more people. It has a more stable structure, not that any of the other competitions are bad. I just feel like there is more competition and diversity in VEX,” said Olivia K.

While creating their robots, Lawrence, Anna, and Olivia made sure to observe their competition in prior events to assist them in designing their own machine. Each team member brought a unique skill set into the process. 

“Most people have something else to contribute whether it’s code or the design of their robot,” said Olivia K.

The team generally coached itself with slight help from other teams who offered advice and support.

“We meet up at least once a week to practice and discuss what we see on YouTube [tutorials] and what we already know. But for the most part, we kind of just do our own thing. I think we spend about an hour a day driving and spend time approaching problems,” said Olivia.

With the competition date looming, Lawrence, Olivia, and Anna are determined to put as much effort as they can into final preparations. They are proud of their acceptance into the competition and apprehensive for whatever the future holds.

“It is honestly pretty nerve-racking for me because I’m the driver, and the team has to depend on my driving skills to score as many points and win. And although I am pretty nervous, it is really exciting,” said Lawrence T.

Lawrence and Olivia agree that AI and robots are the future. Olivia enjoys coding and recognizes that programming and robotics are intertwined.

“Since technology is advancing at a really fast rate, we feel that, by learning robotics, we can learn about machinery that may benefit us in the future. Since it’s our passion to build and code, it’s a fun activity for us,” said Olivia.

Similar to athletic competition, the practice going into the event might just be harder than the actual contest.

“Designing [and] building the robots at home is more challenging than it is to play the competition,” said Lawrence T. “Building the robot takes a lot of time. We needed to design the robot and draw it out. It is sometimes stressful and sometimes rewarding. Sometimes the fields are slightly off, the tilts might be off, or some other factors [regarding design],”

Although the journey has been challenging, the team also finds it incredibly gratifying.

“It feels rewarding because we haven’t qualified for a major event like this, so getting into [one of] the world’s largest events is a huge accomplishment,” said Olivia K.

For Day Creek students interested in the VEX robotics competitions, visit this website for additional information.