Photo provided Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. has officially launched its new robotics league with its first competition of the year.
Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. has officially launched its new robotics league.
The league held its first competition at Northside Middle School on Oct. 28. Smith Elementary STEM teacher Lisa Haines, who was in charge of organizing the event, estimated that there were about 156 students present, and 25 VEX IQ Robotics teams from BCSC elementary and middle schools participated.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better event,” she said. “We had coaches that have really stepped up to the plate and really worked hard with their students and their team members. We had kids that were absolutely excited to be there and to learn and to grow.”
This year’s VEX IQ Robotics Competition game is called “Full Volume.”
Players score points by moving blocks of different sizes in goals and parking their robots in the “Supply Zone” at the end of the match.
“Two robots compete in the Teamwork Challenge as an alliance in 60 second long teamwork matches, working collaboratively to score points,” the rules state. “Teams also compete in the Robot Skills Challenge where one robot takes the field to score as many points as possible. These matches consist of Driving Skills Matches, which will be entirely driver controlled, and Autonomous Coding Skills Matches, which will be autonomous with limited human interaction.”
Haines noted that at the end of league matches, students have the opportunity to discuss their performance and strategize about what to change going forward.
“That’s what it’s all about,” she said. “It’s about helping the kids learn and grow and to kind of think like an engineer.”
The BCSC Robotics League will hold competitions on Nov. 9, Nov. 16 and Dec. 7, culminating in finals on Dec. 16, Haines said.
Columbus will also host the “Full Volume Showdown” Vex Robotics Tournament on Jan. 13, with the event being a qualifier for the state championship.
League events, on the other hand, are “more of a training opportunity for teams to build them up to the next level,” Haines said.
Haines is one of the coaches of Smith Elementary’s Sonic Cyborgs, who ended their first season by competing at the VEX Robotics World Championship in Dallas this past spring.
“I’m just really excited for the kids,” she said. “I want other students in our community to have that experience that my team got to have last year. … When you have kids go and they start talking about, ‘I’m an engineer now’ or ‘I’m a coder’, it just means a lot. That mindset that we’re trying to have our kids have is so important. So it’s about more than a competition.”
