They do not fully comprehend the notion yet, but four Canadian Valley Technology Center students are pioneers of sorts.
The students – all from Tuttle High School – are the first from the Chickasha Campus to win a state VEX Robotics qualifying tournament. All four are also enrolled in Pre-Engineering at CV Tech.
The team is now among 24 who will compete at the state VEX Robotics tournament in March 2019 at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah. State winners advance to the World Championships the following month.
Earlier this school year, CV Tech’s foursome won an innovation award at a tournament in Lawton. Team members were thrilled but chalked up the event as learning experience, said junior Ethan Tucker.
“We changed design to make a more consistent conveyer belt,” he said. “It was slow and took a long time to load and launch.”
Besides winning the Tahlequah tournament last weekend, the team also won the Judges Award in recognition of design creativity and sportsmanship.
Sophomore team member Ryan Tinder said the refinements made all the difference.
“We put a lot of time and work in this robot, and to come home with results and hardware is definitely worth it,” Tinder said.
More than a million students from 50 countries participate annually in over 1,700 VEX competitions worldwide. VEX encourages creative approaches to problem solving, utilizing academic disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (or STEM) education.
Each year, an engineering challenge is presented in the form of a game. Students build competition robots that can successfully carry out a number of in-game tasks.
Teams play within a 12-foot square playing field. The object of this year’s game, “Turning Point” is to maneuver a robot by remote control to flip scoring caps over, toggle flags and park their robots on one of three platforms at the end of the game.
Robots are built by students from a parts kit. Each robot is unique and in its resting position cannot be larger than 18 inches wide or tall.
VEX competitions require alliances in which two teams pair up to square off against two other teams. In the finals, CV Tech was paired with a team from Edmond.
Other winning team members are Ethan Trip and Jake Abston. CV Tech’s challenging Pre-Engineering curriculum includes Pre-AP Physics during students’ sophomore year, followed by college algebra and trigonometry during junior year and Advanced Placement calculus BC in their senior year. Robotics adds an element of fun.
