By Tommy Smeltzer, Robotics Program Director
Two of Eagle Engineering’s three VEX Robotics Competition teams, 1138-A and 1138-B attended the California State Championship event in Bakersfield this weekend. Both teams earned a qualification for the VRC World Championship, which will be held in Louisville, Kentucky, April 20-23.
This, after learning of the 1138-G team’s qualification through winning an online challenge on Friday, makes it the first time that Eagle Engineering has qualified three high school teams for the world event. Team 1138-A received the Design Award, recognizing “the team that demonstrates an organized and professional approach to the design process, project management, time management and team organization.” Team 1138-B earned their way to Worlds by winning the Robot Skills Award, presented to the top ranked team in the VEX Robotics Competition Robot Skills Challenge, in which they scored 311 points in sixty seconds. The B team also came in second in the programming skills challenge with 151 points and won the Amaze Award. The Amaze award “is presented to a team that has built a competition robot that clearly demonstrates overall quality.”
Both teams performed well in the main tournament’s head-to-head competition, 1138-B entered the elimination rounds as captain of the 4th seed alliance and advanced to the semifinals. 1138-A was selected to partner with the 5th seed alliance and was eliminated in the quarterfinals. All three teams will have to balance their preparation for the championship event in April with a rigorous FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) practice and tournament schedule, starting with a tournament next week in Long Beach followed two-weeks later by one in Denver, Colorado.
Eagle Engineering’s Middle School VRC team 83 performed well in their division, but fell just short of qualifying for Worlds when they were eliminated in the semifinals. They did however receive the Sportsmanship Award and show great promise for returning a strong team next year. The middle school VexIQ teams 83A and 83C compete Saturday, March 12 at the VexIQ State Championship in Pasadena.