Twenty-eight robotics teams from across the state are expected to compete for five prizes Saturday at the Carmichael Community Center.
The highest award in a state qualifying VEX Robotics Championship is the Excellence Award, according to VEX Robotics’ John Risk. “Excellence depends on how the judges judge you, how you compete throughout the day and how you end up in skills. It’s kind of three-part. If you do well in all three areas, you usually win the Excellence award.”
“The way VEX is set up is you have 12 teams competing on a 12×12 field and you have an alliance of two teams,” Risk said. “In the morning they get alliances chosen randomly through a system called Tournament Manager and then after everyone has qualified there is something called alliance selection and you can choose your partner for the rest of the afternoon for the elimination part of the tournament to see who wins the tournament champions. So this is a two team alliance He will win the champions of the tournament and both of them will get the titles.”
Entry is free to attend the tournament. It is scheduled to start at 8 a.m. at 800 S. Elm St. , but matches are not scheduled to begin until around 9:30am or 10am, matches will run until 4pm, and awards will be presented at 4:45pm
A team from White County Central, four teams from West Memphis Academies, four teams from Cabot High School, four teams from Star City High School, one team from Abundant Life School of Sherwood, and a team from Bradford High School are expected to compete. , a team from Nashville High School, two teams from Rose Bud High School, two teams from Sheridan High School, three teams from Gentry High School Conversion Charter, three teams from Batesville, Southerner Robotics, and two academies teams from Jonesboro High School.
All teams are “School Sponsored”. The two teams hosting the stakes are the “community teams. We’re funded by yard sales and bake sales and things like that. We actually work out of my garage.”
“This is our third season with The Matrix,” he said. “That was the inaugural team we started on. We have five on the team this year and watch them use their brains and how they grow. … In the Matrix, the youngest is in ninth grade; we have two seniors, a freshman and a sophomore. My youngest team, the Breakers Circle, in their first year; they’re kids in grade 6-8 and we already have one kid on this team from Lonoke. His father works with my wife and brings him in every Saturday to practice.
Some of the kids come from Crosspointe Preparatory School [in Searcy] Then we have three kids from the church that are at Morris School. They have a school there now. And we have one kid from Cersei High School.”
The Matrix, according to Risk, qualified for the World Championships last year, but “we couldn’t go because of funding, but we went to Council Bluffs, Iowa, last year and competed with some teams all over the country and the world and that was a fun ride.”
So far this year, he said, “Matrix has competed in two tournaments and won six titles so they’ve won robot skills in both tournaments, tournament champions in both tournaments, the Excellence Award and the Design Award.”
To become a bot skills champion, teams try to score as many points as a neutral alliance themselves on the same field where they play matches, Risk said.
“Currently, the state’s highest score is 138 and it’s held by Bryant and then the Matrix teams in second place with 124 points of the state’s standings now,” he said. “Whoever has the best score will be the champion of skills and will get the trophy.”
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