The term perennial powerhouse historically applies to athletics. High school students enrolled in Pre-Engineering at Canadian Valley Technology Center would argue against tradition when hoisting hardware hauled in from multiple state championships on the robotics competition circuit.
CV Tech’s team “if Crash: Don’t()” was co-champion, along with a team from Francis Tuttle. VEX teams are paired in a two-team alliance during competitions. The team name is computer programming humor that means, “If you’re going to crash, don’t.”
This year’s engineering challenge game was called Tower Takeover. All tournaments are played on identical 12’ x 12’ indoor game fields. Remotely-controlled robots collect points by collecting and placing cubes in towers on in goal areas.
Chickasha’s team qualified for the VEX World Competition, but the event has been canceled due to social distancing mandates resulting from the Covid-19 outbreak. The team also won the Build Award. Another Chickasha Campus team placed as state runner-up and won the Innovate Award. This team also would qualify for VEX Worlds.
“I am so proud of how long and hard our students worked,” said Pre-Engineering instructor Heath Bush. “Our success came from all their hard work all year. It was a very satisfying ending to a great year of VEX.”
The winning team is comprised of Ryan Tinder and Matelyn Jones. The runners-up are Cade Seay and Lane Andreas.
An El Reno Campus team was also recognized with the Judge’s Award. CV Tech teams have appeared at the world championships in 2014, 2015, 2018 and 2019. Worldwide each year, VEX competitions include more than 11,500 teams from 40 countries competing in more than 750 tournaments.
