Wizz! Bang! Crash! The sounds of motors whirring up, gears slipping, and metal crunching filled the ears of the 61 VEX Robotics teams that gathered at Lynfield College on the weekend of the 24/25th February to compete in the annual VEX Robotics Nationals! Two Palmy Boys robots competed among of contingent of 6 Manawatu teams. VEX Robotics teams design, build and programme their own robots before letting them compete in games with set objectives against other teams. The objective for this season is lift and flip ‘caps’ onto posts, pickup and turn flags by firing balls scattered around the field and to ‘park’ the entire robot on a raised platform at the end of the match. Both teams had worked hard on their robots for around 6 months of weekly build sessions and occasional Saturday scrimmages, so we excited to see how their robots would do in such a strong competitive environment.
After 2 days of intense qualification matches, our Senior A team, 2903S, finished the qualifiers with a ranking of 12th and our Senior B team, 2903T, finished with a ranking of 20th. Both teams fought with numerous mechanical and software issues over the 2-day period – resulting in some unfortunate losses. Going into the elimination bracket the higher-seeded alliance 2903S lost 16-17 in the octa-finals and the lower-seeded 2903T won their octa-final match after the opposition was disqualified but later lost 8-31 in the quarter-finals.
It was an intense 2 days of competition with a good offering from PNBHS, who upheld their reputation of being strong competitors from the Manawatu region. This year marks the last year that teams will use the old V4 Cortex system, so we look forward to the opportunities and challenges that the new V5 equipment will bring with it.
If you are interested in getting involved in VEX. Come along to the posted meetings afterschool on Tuesday and Thursday or see Mr Liengme in E13!
