Cherokee County robotics teams go to Worlds, make plans for next season

May 16—Several Cherokee County Schools competed in the World Championships in robotics and came back with plans for improvement next year.

Kym Tinsley, Tahlequah Middle School robotics coach and STEM teacher, said TMS had two teams, the Brobots and the Waffle Turtlez, that qualified for the 2024 VEX Robotics World Championship-VEX IQ Competition Middle School Event. The Waffle Turtlez ranked 56th in the Innovate division, with the Brobots receiving 41st in the Spirit Division.

“Waffle Turtlez have worked since elementary school to secure a spot to Worlds,” Tinsley said. “This was their first time going. Two students from this team will move to high school and compete, and they are excited to work toward competing at this level again. Brobots have been to Worlds multiple times and they get better every year. This year, I saw an improved collaboration with other teams. They worked and practiced with teams. I saw a lot of perseverance in them when they were ranked last in their division and worked each match to increase their ranks.”

Tinsley said the teams learned several skills while working with other groups from all over the world.

“Competing at the World level allows them to put the skills we work on in class and practice into practice, and allows them to work with other teams in situations we don’t normally encounter competing at the local or national level,” Tinsley said.

Conor McMillen, of the Waffle Turtlez, said getting to go to Worlds was overwhelming at first, but it was interesting meeting the other teams and dealing with language barriers.

“We had a team from Turkey that we had to use translators with a couple of times,” Conor said.

Conor said the team did better than he expected, as students had to dismantle and recreate a new robot before the competition.

Ruxton Hummingbird, of The Brobots, said he felt good about how his team did this season. Malik Elexson, also of the Brobots, said the group was thinking about incorporating summer practices to help boost their chances of going to Worlds again next year.

TMS Robotics will have five to six teams next season, with many students returning from the previous year. Tinsley said they have plans for the teams to host multiple tournaments, compete at several local events and qualify for Worlds again.

Kristin Wadley, a robotics coach at Heritage Elementary, said Tahlequah and Briggs go to the contest under the auspices of Cherokee Nation.

“We all go to Worlds under the Cherokee Nation, not under the state of Oklahoma because of so much support from the Cherokee Nation,” Wadley said.

COGS from Heritage Elementary placed 66th in their division. Wadley said the students stayed right in the middle with their placing.

She said the best part of Worlds is getting to see her students compete. Blake Otten and Lukas Limore, both of COGS, said the hardest part was the driving portion.

“State was harder than Worlds because we had to keep our scores high enough to make it to Worlds,” Abdias Torres, of COGS, said.

To improve for next year, Lukas and Blake said the group plans to build and practice over the summer.

School-based robotics teams are popular in this area, but there is one independent team in Cherokee County. Voltage, which placed 61st in their division, has three members, Coach Katy Nelson said, but only two were able to attend Worlds. Nelson is also the mother to Voltage member Kai Brinkley, who said the experience was stressful but exhilarating.

“We spend 365 days preparing and only have 10 minutes of drive time,” Kai said. “I felt like there was a lot on the line. Worlds was extremely hard. Thousands of teams from hundreds of countries were whittled down to only 400 teams. The other teams also spent thousands of hours, which made it very competitive.”

Kai’s favorite part was meeting teams from other areas of the world and learning their culture. Kai said he learned a lot, and that camaraderie quickly formed among teams.

“For example, our controller broke right before a match and a team from Andorra immediately loaned us their controller with no hesitations,” Kai said.

Briggs Robotics Coach Haley Davenport said the SkittleBusters took 67th in their division and PickleBotz was 45th in their division. This was the first year for Briggs to go to Worlds, to vie again over 800 other teams. Davenport said it was interesting to see students compete at that level, especially the elementary team, which is ranked one of the top four in Oklahoma.

“It was humbling for them and exciting all at the same time,” Davenport said. “I saw them go through and they were watching some of the other bots do things we hadn’t been able to see all year long in Oklahoma. Then they go up there and people are doing full parks and cleaning out the supply zone.”

Davenport said the event motivated the team and also taught the students how to adapt.

Adilynn Eubanks, of the Skittlebusters, said that after going to inspection at Worlds, the team’s robot was measured as oversized, so they had to modify the design.

“It was fun getting to have a new experience with something I had never done before,” Adilynn said. “I enjoyed doing the notebook and plan to do it again next year. I think some people don’t really know what robotics is about; it’s like science, sports, building blocks, computers and video games all at once.”

Adilynn said next year she plans to recruit more teammates and wants to create a “GirlPowered” team.