HOB team represents Cape at VEX Robotics World Championship
A robotics team from H.O. Brittingham Elementary School brought innovation, teamwork and determination to the world stage at the annual VEX Robotics World Championship, held in May in Dallas.
HOB has had teams attend worlds in the past, but this was the first time for these students to participate at this level of competition. “We were really excited when we learned we were going to advance to worlds,” said fifth-grader Brody Vickers. “But we also knew we needed to practice and work hard so that we were ready to compete at a higher level.”
The HOB Viking Robotics team competed in a rapid relay competition played on a 6-by-8-foot rectangular field. Two robots compete in the teamwork challenge as an alliance for 60 seconds, with each driver getting 30 seconds to work collaboratively to score points. Teams also competed in the individual skills challenge where one robot takes the field to score as many points as possible. The driving skills matches are entirely driver controlled, while autonomous coding skills matches have limited human interaction, and the purpose is to code the bot so it functions on its own.
“Our students earned 35th out of 82 teams in the technology division, and more than doubled their team personal bests,” said Wendy Coverdale, HOB robotics advisor and fifth-grade teacher. “To put that into perspective, our club practices roughly two hours a week. Some of the schools participating in the sorld competition are from other countries where their school systems are STEM-based, and robotics is something that they do every single day. For our rookie team to have earned 35th out of 82 teams is something to be really proud of!”
The world competition also brought an opportunity for students to work and learn with teams from all over the world. “Just having the opportunity to work with teams outside of our own school is one of the biggest impacts this opportunity has had for our students,” said Cathy Ward, fifth-grade teacher and robotics advisor. “Our students had the chance to see other people’s ideas, collaborate together and ultimately learn things that they may not have otherwise had the chance to learn.”
Ward also noted that during the teamwork competition, communication about the bot was key between the two teams. “I was really proud of how honest our students were with the teams they worked with,” she said. “Some of the teams came into the teamwork challenge and said their bot could accomplish tasks that it couldn’t do, and that really impacted the score for both teams involved. Our students were confident in their abilities, had realistic expectations about what they were going to be able to accomplish, and most importantly, were honest with the other teams about those expectations.”
Four of the five team members are heading to middle school next year, where they hope to be able to continue honing their robotics skills. They also shared some advice for incoming students who will choose to join the club next year, which included making sure to take time for programming, because adjusting by just a millimeter can be the key to success. They also said [robotics] may seem really easy at first, but it’s actually pretty challenging, and it’s important to communicate with the other players.
