The Greenville Journal spoke with the Blue Ridge Middle School robotics team about their journey to the 2024 VEX Robotics World Championship April 25-May 3 in Dallas, Texas.
See the interview below with the coach and students.
Interim coach and teacher Tara Sargent
When did Blue Ridge Middle School start a robotics team?
The team started in 2016.
From the start to today, how many students have participated?
This season we had nine teams consisting of 32 students from grades six through eight. Two sixth grade teams made it to state and all six of the seventh-eighth grade teams made it. Of those eight teams, three of them made it to Worlds.
From the start of the program we’ve had nine teams a year excluding 2022-2023 season where we had six. The team numbers fluctuate between three and four members a team. So an estimated 69 teams and certain people stay in the program for two to three years.
Are we missing anything?
This is the third time that our program has had students that made it to Worlds. The first time was during COVID-19 so they were unable to attend. I am the interim coach and I am currently supporting them on their trip to Worlds. This has been a very challenging year for these kids and they have done an amazing job under the circumstances. Their motivation and determination is something you rarely see in a group of middle schoolers and I am very proud to call them mine, if only for a short time.
Hear from the students before VEX Robotics World Championship
What does it mean to make the World Championships in April?
To make the World Championship means that for the whole school year we have worked hard to design, build, test, code and drive our robots and have done so in such a way that we have set ourselves apart from the other teams and are in the top 5% of VEX teams worldwide and will compete with our fellow robotics teams and those from around the world for 3 days. – Dominik Burgess
How will you prepare as a team?
We are going to evaluate the designs we used for the state championship, try and nip any major flaws in the bud, and then code and practice driving our robots to be able to compete against the other teams. This is a lot of time management and forward thinking on our part. Essentially we are trying to tie up loose ends and make sure we are capable of being highly competitive at the world championships. – Dominik Burgess
What challenges have you, the students, encountered with competitions and preparations?
We have all had to make sure we manage our time according to capability of performing certain tasks in time. While doing this you have to track other teams and their successes to plan out your offensive and defensive strategies against them. You also have to make sure you exhibit good playing so that way you can pick another team to play with against other alliances. While doing all this you have to make sure that you have kept up your engineering notebook that documents your design process and then answer an interview by judges. The notebook, interview, and your performance are all used to determine who wins awards so you have to pay very close attention to detail. By far the biggest challenge though has been the fact that our coach, who we call Barney, passed away midseason so we’ve had to persevere through that which has proved a lot easier said than done. -Dominik Burgess
How did you overcome the challenges?
For the regular challenges we have just made sure to split the workload and duties so individuals don’t get overwhelmed. We still help each other with our tasks and duties. Dealing with Mr. Barnette/ Barney’s passing has been far more difficult than the other challenges. We have managed though thanks to each other and our sub in coaches that have done so much for us, Mrs. Plumier and Mrs Sargent. The program was in danger of stopping but thanks to Mrs. Sargent and Mrs. Plumeier we were able to continue and make it to worlds in honor of Barney. – Dominik Burgess
What is it like to build a robot?
You have to understand mechanical advantage, torque, speed and the limits of your motors and pneumatics. The robots are constructed from pieces with pre-drilled metal so you can make just about anything within the 18 inch cube parameter and the 88 watt motor limit. You do have to think rather closely but in Vex if you have a drill it’s easy to fix mistakes. Overall you do have to think very critically about the limits of your tech and be sure not to overwork your motors and try your best to motorshare between systems to conserve watts. Difficulty seems to vary person to person from my experience. Some kids seem to make cool, sturdy and complex robots without a problem while others seem to struggle and every skill level in between. – Dominik Burgess
How did you decide to build your specific robot?
Our specific robot is a 4 bar lift with a flywheel for shooting the game elements and an intake to manipulate the game elements. We also have a powerful drivetrain for defensive power. We came to this via brainstorming throughout the season. In the beginning of the season we brainstormed a bunch of ideas and ran them through a decision matrix to find the best design. After constructing, we test, find problems and then restart the design process building off our previous concepts, problems with old designs and how the meta is evolving overall. –Dominik Burgess
How does your robot stand out to others in competitions?
Our robot is rather sturdy and cannot be blocked by any team in the state while shooting the game element. Our bot is built offensively minded but defense is still considered and this reflects in competition as we are quite versatile. We are consistently high scoring and highly defensive at the same time. Our bulky build and powerful drive give us a ton of inertia and pushing force to manipulate and defend other robots. This versatility and power tends to make us more successful than many other robots. -Team 29651R (Dominik Burgess, Ian Carrig, Cooper Tholen, Cooper McCoy and Matthew Sargent)
What tips do you have for other students to build a robot?
Consult the community, there are tons of other teams and more experienced ones with more building practices and tips. You can go on the Vex Forum or YouTube to find explanations and reveal videos if you don’t know where to start on your build or design.Vex was made to foster teamwork and cooperation in STEM and many other students in VEX reflect that and are usually willing to help.
