Vexing Robotics

Our middle school has for the first time started teams in the VEX IQ competition.  It's a little like FIRST but smaller scale.  I'm only peripherally involved in this but since it involves several of our future high school team members I have kept an eye on things.

A couple of their machines ready to test.

Of course they are built from prefab parts.  Basically Lego type components.  So this puts a few limitations on the mechanical designs possible.  And I fear puts some constraints in their thinking that we will have to undo later.  Just as the more free form "Machines Behaving Badly" farm club has some overly wide boundaries that must be reigned in.

Here's the VEX competition.  I'd never seen one before....

Fifty plus teams.  Held in a big gym with the usual execrable florescent light.

The game involved moving plastic balls around and stacking cubes.  Oddly to my eyes it also required the team to switch drivers in mid match.

For your first time in a new program you just don't want to have your robots tip over and start smoking.  The teams did OK, middle of the pack.  But they took it seriously. Even after they were out of contention you'd see the kids continuing to practice with their robots.

I'm happy to report that the teams from our town came up with unusual solutions to the game challenge.  Not in the end the most effective ones, but still.  The judges liked them and one of the teams actually won an award for a "creative engineering solution".  

All in all a good day of robots.  The Farm Club for the high school team is growing some good future talent.