The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts robotics team won second place at the recent VEX Robotics state competition, earning an opportunity to compete at the VEX Worlds competition in April.
The VEX state competition was held at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville on March 11. The VEX Worlds competition will be held in Dallas, Texas, on April 25-27, at which ASMSA will have the opportunity to compete against other top robotic teams from around the world.
This year’s competition is called “Spin Up,” in which teams build a robot to compete in a match of robotic disc golf. Teams played on a 12-foot by 12-foot square field with the object of the game being for a team to attain a higher score by scoring discs in goals, owning rollers and covering field tiles in the two-minute match.
The team’s second-place finish is a result of their hard work and dedication to designing, building and programming robots for competitive competition, said Nicholas Seward, the team’s adviser and a computer science instructor. The impressive achievement demonstrates their expertise in the field of robotics and reflects their commitment to excellence, he said.
Junior Nasya Choy, a member of the team who is from Conway, said the competition provides students a learning and team-building opportunity. The team worked together to develop a strategy for building the robot and gameplay approach.
“The competition was a great experience to see everyone’s robots,” Choy said. “We intentionally designed our bot to be very defensive and robust, so it was nice to see how well we fared against other more offensive robots.
“Through robotics I’ve learned how to document the engineering process and time management techniques we used throughout the competition season. I love doing robotics not just because of the learning experience but also because of the people. We all worked really hard as a team, and I’m excited to spend more time together at Worlds.”