Neenah High School’s VEX Robotics team had two impressive performances last week, including a winning team at the state championship meet that qualified for the world championships April 15-18 in Louisville.
The team of Alex Mootz, Jordan Altekruse, Evan Dujardin, Mareena Franke, Sam Hintz, Alex Schrampfer and Marissa Bredesen won the “Tournament of Champions” award at the state meet to earn its world championship invite. Neenah had three teams competing among the 52 qualifiers for the state meet, which was held Feb. 21 at Xavier High School in Appleton.
In addition, the team of Adam Burkett, Andrew Belot, Erik Metzig, Angela Butke, Rob Schimdt and Matt Karrmann won the Fox Valley VEX Robotics Competition League title at UW-Fox Valley and qualified to compete in the U.S. Open championships April 7-9 in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
Every robot in these competitions was designed to play a game called VEX Skyrise. Students use building and programming strategies to create the best robot possible. After competition, the teams redesign their robot to improve game play or increase their robot’s capabilities. Many of these skills are learned through Project Lead the Way classes at Neenah High School.
The VEX Robotics World Championship brings together top robotics teams to celebrate their accomplishments and compete with and against the best teams from around the world. The event will include top teams from over 500 VEX Robotics competition tournaments happening in cities around the world from June 2014 to March 2015.
Description of VEX Skyrise Game:
VEX Skyrise is played on a 12’x12’ square field configured as seen above. Two alliances – one “red” and one “blue” – composed of two teams each, compete in matches consisting of a fifteen second autonomous period followed by one minute and forty-five seconds of driver-controlled play.
The object of the game is to attain a higher score than the opposing Alliance by Scoring your colored Cubes in Floor Goals, on Posts or on your Skyrise, by Owning Posts, and byBuilding your Skyrise Sections.
There are a total of forty-four (44) Cubes, twenty-two (22) red and twenty-two (22) blue, and fourteen (14) Skyrise Sections available Scoring Objects in the game. Most Scoring Objects begin in designated locations on the field, while some are available to be entered into the field during the match.
Each Robot (smaller than 18”x18”x18” to start) begins a match on one of their Alliance Starting Tiles. There are ten (10) Posts and four (4) Floor Goals that Robots can Score Objects onto. The Alliance with the topmost Cube on a Post Owns the Post. Alliances also earn points for Building Skyrises on their Skyrise Base out of Skyrise Sections, and Scoring Cubes on Skyrises. A bonus is awarded to the Alliance that has the most total points at the end of the Autonomous Period.
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