Photo by David Coleman
The VEX Robotics Championship have come and gone and I would have to say they were a resounding success. Over 400 VEX teams competed across four divisions for numerous trophies and awards.
The tournament champions were an alliance of two New Zealand teams and one Chinese team. 2921 Free Range Robotics, 2919 K-Force from Kristin School, and 8192AShanghai Luwan Teenagers Activity Center. The finalists were an alliance of three U.S. teams, 21C Champs Charter High School from California, 44 Green Egg Robotics (defending champions) from Massachusetts and 575 Exothermic Robotics from Washington. Both Free Range and Green Egg are homeschool teams.
A near complete list of awards can be found on the 2010 World Championship event page. I will be updating the results to include more information later this week.
Photo by Paul Johnson
I spent most of the tournament working the Engineering division. It was exciting, exhausting, and without a doubt one of the most rewarding things I have ever done. We ran over 200 matches across 2.5 days with an average time of four minutes per match. That’s 2:20 for the match itself and 1:40 to count the score, get the bots off the field, and get the new teams on deck and ready to compete.
I have to give a hearty thanks to Johnnie from team 1604 The Firebots from Phoenix Charter School in Greenville, and David from 1429 Team KAOS from Galena Park. They stepped in and helped my daughter get to her matches on time and acted as surrogate mentor and coach while I was busy working.
