iD Tech Bloggers

Robotics: Not Just For Boys

I’m spending this weekend at Hilltop High School in Chula Vista, California, for the final round of qualification in the VEX Robotics “Elevation” tournament.  (For a quick rundown on the rules, keep reading.)

iD Tech Camps gave away a scholarship to the “Excellence” award winning team – Team Spyder from Poway High School!

The winning Alliance consisted of 3 teams, the rest of the matches were 2-on-2.  Check out the pictures – Robotics isn’t just for boys!

The ingenuity and enthusiasm I see at these tournaments is unbelievable.  We use the same kits in our iD Tech Camps RoboContenders class that are used for this tournament, and I can’t wait to see what this summer’s crop of roboticists comes up with!

Here’s a quick rundown on the rules, from the vexrobotics.com website:

• Elevation is played on a 12′x12′ square field. Two alliances – one “red” and one “blue” – composed of two teams each, compete in each match which consists of a twenty-second autonomous period followed by two minutes of driver-controlled play.
• The object of the game is to attain a higher score than your opponent alliance by placing cubes into goals, and by “owning” goals by having the highest cube in a given goal. Points can also be earned by “parking” on the platform or by “controlling” the bonus cube.
• A bonus is awarded to the alliance that has the most total points at the end of the Autonomous Period.

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Tags: competition, game, iD Tech Camp, RoboContenders, robotics, robots, scholarship, tournament, vex

This entry was posted on Monday, March 23rd, 2009 at 11:37 pm and is filed under iD Tech Bloggers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.