VEX Robotics made an appearance in the public eye last weekend, with a competition held at the ASB Showgrounds in conjunction with the ‘Big Boys Toys’ Expo. On Saturday the tenth, twenty-three teams competed in seven matches each, all vying for a place in the elimination rounds. AURA-mentored team 2950A, from St Cuthbert’s college, ranked first after qualification rounds as the only team with no losses. Aligned with team 2915S from Lynfield College, they made it through to become finalists against teams 2921B, Freerange Robotics, and 2915A, also from Lynfield College.
The games continued on Sunday with a new scrimmage. This time twenty robots competed, giving each of them ten chances to play qualification matches with randomised teammates and opponents. St Cuthbert’s ranked slightly lower this time, placing sixth, and aligning with another AURA mentored team – 2918B from Glenfield College. These two fought hard through their eliminations, unfortunately being knocked out in their semi-final round against the eventual champions.
2918A, another AURA-mentored Glenfield College team, found their way up the board to rank third after their qualification matches. They chose to align with team 2915S of Lynfield College, and the pair worked their way through to an impressive final, and an unfortunate loss, against 2921B and 2915A, who again aligned together and took out the competition.
Skills challenges were also run at this event, where team 2915A of Lynfield College moved into first place on the world ‘Robot Skills’ leaderboard with an extremely impressive score of 285, beating their previous personal best by 40 points. While the competition was in progress in the main hall, volunteers from AURA and Massey University also ran a ‘have a go’ field for members of the public to try driving a robot for themselves. This was based on a simplified version of the sack attack game and played with small demo robots built by volunteers. The field generated a lot of interest in the robots, and a number of students who drove them are now planning to start competition teams at their own schools, expanding and integrating VEX Robotics further into the New Zealand community.
An opportunity to showcase VEX Robotics and AURA like this does not come along often, and we extend our thanks to those who made it possible – Kiwibots, ASB Showgrounds, and ‘Big Boys Toys’ provided a great set up for the event, and AURA and Massey volunteers put on a great competition for both the competitors and members of the public. We look forward to seeing how all the teams will progress between now and the Asia-Pacific Championship in three weeks.