Multiple Kansas teams competing at world robotics competition

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) – The VEX Robotics World Championship is in Dallas beginning at the end of April, and many Kansas teams will be showcasing their talents.

There are 10 middle school and six high school teams from the state attending the World Championships in the VRC Divisions.

“All that joy in you, it felt like you accomplished that,” Wilbur Middle School team member Noah Graves said.

In the IQ Division, there is one middle school team from Hoisington, two elementary teams from Garden City, and one from Lawrence.

“The kids really want it, and so they go for it, and I’m just super proud for what they can do,” Hoisington coach Augustus Anders said. “It’s amazing to watch them work.”

The students are completely responsible for their own robots.

“I really like how much creativity it takes and how you have to build a robot on your own and try to make it score as many points as possible,” Hoisington team member Leighton Britt said. “It’s really fun to use that creativity.”

“I think it’s fun to just like have a team, and you just work together with either your friends or someone new, and you can just make new friends from it, or you can just be with your friends, and it creates really good teamwork,” Hoisington team member Joey Valentino said.

Students design, build, program, and automate their robots to compete in a game that changes each year. Teams are also competing for awards based on teamwork, design, skills, and an engineering notebook. 

Valentino says this sets him up for his future.

“A reason why I continue to do it is just for, like, the experience because a lot of careers nowadays, most of them have to do with like robotics,” Valentino said. “And I think that’d be good experience for the future.”

Teachers agree, saying it’s an educational gold mine.

“VEX Robotics finds and fosters the skills these kids need to be career-ready,” Wilbur technology education teacher Lauri Isaacs said. “The robot is built by future Kansas skill labor. It’s designed by future engineer. It’s coded by a person that might go into computer science industry. The engineering notebook is written by any career that would be technical writing. So it hits a wide variety of skills these kids need to develop and foster.”

Wilbur’s 2036A and Allison’s 25900A partnered together during the state tournaments.

“It was like one of our main goals,” Wilbur team member Brecken Dexter said. “Everyone around us wanted to get to win state, but we never got our hopes too high because we didn’t want to let ourselves down. So actually winning state when we didn’t believe in ourselves felt actually really good.”

That Allison team also won the excellence award, which is the highest honor given. It takes into account their engineering notebooks, an interview and their performance on the field. The Wilbur team has three eighth graders, and the Allison team has four eighth graders. 

Competitions begin in the summer, and it goes through March, when students are competing to be invited to the state championship. At state, teams compete for spots to go to the VEX World Championships in Dallas.

Each year, there is a new game for the robots. this year, the game is called Over Under. It is played on a 12-foot by 12-foot square field where two teams align to compete against another alliance. The first 15 seconds of the match is an autonomous period where the robot is programmed to score as many points as possible without human interaction. The winner of the autonomous period receives a bonus at the end of the match. During the final minute and 45 seconds, students have programmed a remote or two to score points with the different mechanisms they have built. The object of Over Under is to get a higher score than the opposing alliance by scoring Triballs in goals, and by elevating at the end of the match. 

At worlds, students will compete against and with people teams from around the world.

“To have that opportunity for these kids to see outside of Wichita and outside of the state of Kansas, it’s an awesome opportunity for them to be able to go and see and compete against teams from all over the world,” Wilbur technology education teacher Kasey Littlefield said. There’s tons of teams from China and Russia and South America and Puerto Rico, and they get to compete, and they get to work with the students as well. So, the competition, they get to work with teams from other countries as well and have that communication and learn those very important skills. And it’s just an awesome opportunity to be able to go.”