Queensbury Middle School Vex Robotics places second in multiple challenges, 15th in nation

QMS Vex Robotics shows outstanding effort this month in robotics competitions across the state, placing second in multiple events.

Competition #3: Saturday, February 19, 2022 in Canaseraga, NY

The QMS team competed against 20 teams. Four of the teams were from LaSalle Preparatory Academy out of Niagara Falls, NY, which includes robotics as part of their daily curriculum. A coach from LaSalle stated the bare minimum classroom and club time for each team was 13 hrs/week.  Even against these odds, the results for the QMS team (the “Radical Robots”) were astonishing, showing that our students truly put forth the effort and time required to place in these challenging events.

The QMS “Radical Robots” won the following:

• • Teamwork challenge: 2^nd place (received the Teamwork 2^nd Place Award)
  • Skills challenge: Finished 2^nd place (8 points behind 1^st place and 46 points ahead of 3^rd place)
  • Engineering notebook: Won the Design Award.  This goes to the team with the “most effective and efficient robot design process.”

Competition #4: Saturday, February 26, in Syracuse, NY.

Results from this competition, where QMS’s “Radical Robots” competed against 23 teams, were equally outstanding:

• • Teamwork challenge: 3^rd place
    
  • Skills challenge: Finished 2^nd place (2 points behind 1^st place and 24 points ahead of 3^rd place)
  • Engineering notebook: Won the Judges Award.  This award is “recognition from judges for special accomplishments.” 

The next upcoming tournament is the State Championship in Syracuse, NY on March 12, 2022.

World Rankings

• The Radical Robots are currently 15^th in the United States (out of 2,885 teams, Queensbury Middle School is in the top 0.5%)
• The Radical Robots are currently 45^th in the World (out of 3,810 teams, Queensbury Middle School is in the top 1.2%)

Robotics competition information

The Vex IQ competition consists of 3 distinct parts: Teamwork challenge, Skills, and Engineering notebook – all receiving the approximate same scoring value to determine the overall “Excellence Award” winner.

Teamwork challenge: The teamwork challenge takes the brunt of the day.  It consists of a total 8 competitions, each 1 minute long, with another robot on the field.  The goal is for the 2 robots to work together to maximize the total score for the 1 minute.

Skills: Skills consists of 3 driving and 3 programming challenges.  Each challenge is one minute long and is executed only with 1 robot on the field.

Engineering notebook: As is true in engineering, it is critical to document the engineering process from beginning to end, including the initial design options, challenges and solutions to specific problems, and the “print” of the final build including the programming code.  In theory, the notebook should be so thorough that another team could duplicate your robot purely from your engineering notebook.  The judging for this portion includes the review of the notebook and a 15 minute team interview to audit team comprehension of the notebook and the engineering process.

The Queensbury Middle School VEX Robotics team:

This is the third year with the same team in VEX robotics.  All of the team members are trained in all the concepts of engineering, however, based upon the complexity of this program, team members specialize into 1-2 categories.  Each team member’s specialty is described below:

• • Jonny Cirillo: Builder, Driver
  • Lily Comier: Builder, Driver
  • Hazel Wood: Programmer, Builder
  • Juliana Muldner: Engineering Notebook, Programmer
  • Nolan Young: Engineering Notebook
  • Maddox Brodt: Engineering Notebook