Hard work and dedication paid off for a team of Brockport High School students who advanced all the way to the state championships in the VEX Robotics Competition.
Each year, VEX Robotics introduces a new game. This year’s game, called Nothing But Net, is played on a 12-by-12 square foot field. Teams compete to score by getting foam balls into nets at two different heights. The first match consists of a 15 second autonomous period in which the robots are programmed to score on their own and the second involves a one minute, 45 second period of driver-controlled play.
Students in John Randolph’s Computer Integrated Manufacturing class were teamed up and each tasked with the project of building a robot capable of participating in the game. Four of those teams then competed in the local qualifying competition at Livonia High School. One Brockport team, made up of juniors Dan Fletcher, William Levchuk, Connor Noble and Eric Toepper, qualified to advance to Northern NY State Level VEX Robotics Competition.
Building a robot takes patience, dedication, skill and time. The students also learned how to code with VEX Natural Language, a language that combines Java, C and C++ programming languages, with some drag and drop functionality and syntax structure.
“Keep in mind the students brainstorm, collaborate, design, build, test, evaluate, modify or essentially experience the design process through authentic hands-on learning, while critically solving fun problems,” said technology teacher John Randolph.
“It’s a physical representation of math,” said junior Dan Fletcher. “It’s gratifying to see the answer.”
The qualifying team went to work to perfect their robot through what they called “a lot of trial and error.” The four boys spent countless hours in the classroom after school, particularly Levchuk, the lead designer. “Patience and persistence was the key,” said Levchuk as he admitted to staying at school as late as 11 p.m. on several occasions to work on the robot.
The state competition took place in Syracuse on March 6. Each team member played a role in the competition. Fletcher and Toepper controlled the two joysticks, Levchuk was in charge of shooting the foam balls and Noble directed.
The Brockport team ranked fifth out of 50 teams from the qualifying rounds, and won six of the seven qualifying rounds. Although the team did not win the championship, they received a trophy for making it to the finals. They also received a Build Award trophy for the design and structure of their robot and a trophy for sending four teams to the Livonia qualifying event.
“I believe Brockport will go to the World Level next year because we have the best kids with high intelligence, great attitudes and drive to be the best,” said Randolph. “I am so proud of them.”
Randolph and high school technology teacher Stephanie Mattice received approval from the Board of Education to initiate a Robotics Club, which they hope to have up and running this fall to maximize student engagement for next year’s VEX competitions.
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