A Notre Dame Catholic School robotics team is headed to the VEX IQ World Championships after winning the Region 4 State Championship in Austin in March. VEX IQ, a robotics program for students aged kindergarten through university, provides robot kits and objectives for teams to participate in their regional and worldwide competitions.
Since 2018, Notre Dame Catholic School has been training interested students in the construction, programming, and competitive aspects of robotics. Leading the robotics program is Amanda Beck ter Stege, who coaches her teams of middle-school-aged boys through robotics tournaments.
“When they go to competitions, they get to meet different people and see different builds. They did a really good job this year of meeting an online community and they kept in touch with other teams,” said Beck ter Stege.
The VEX robotics competitions consist of a variety of teams from different schools building their own bots from the same build-kits. The teams are judged on a variety of criteria based upon teamwork, programming, and the completion of a task.
This year’s challenge is to create a robot from the provided kit that can pick up and throw a ball in two different heighted goals.
“ This year they have a goal where they have to shoot a ball in and knock a switch. After that, they get bonus points for making passes. So they had to learn how to work with other bots with kids they’ve never met to make passes and maximize scores,” said Beck ter Stege.
The members of the advancing Team 1901B are Blaine Green, Anthony Capozzi, Andrew Delgado, and Alex ter Stege, who constructed and programmed the robot from the provided VEX robotics kit.
“In between competitions, you can build a different robot and change it or keep it the same, but we never kept the same model. Our other team kept theirs, but my team has had a different bot every single tournament–we are always changing it and modifying it,” said robotics team member Blaine Green.
When paired with a random robotics team at tournaments, one teams’ robot will throw and the other will catch, making the versatility of the robot builds vital to gaining teamwork points. The Notre Dame team advancing to Worlds has capabilities for both intaking and launching.
“ Originally the robot had a thing called a double-shot catapult, where it would intake the balls and shoot and clear two switches and a door. Now we switched out that intake with a roller which has a PTO, Power Takeoff , where we come in and the ball will roll in through the back so it’s quicker and more versatile for teamwork,” said Green.
After winning the Texas Region 4 State Championship the first time in their school’s history, team 1901B earned Notre Dame Catholic School’s third invitation to the VEX IQ World Competition ever. Within their competition season, where the teams attended six tournaments, Team 1901B consistently scored in the top five, earning a spot in the invitation-only national CREATE US Open robotics tournament.
Now bound for the VEX IQ World Championship in Dallas come May, Team 1901B prepares by continuing their modifications and tests to their current robot model.
For more information on Notre Dame Catholic School’s robotics teams, visit their website at: www.notredameschool.cc/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=275700&type=d&pREC_ID=2137023.