Hawks Power Up for VEX Robotics World Championship at Walt Disney World’s ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex on April 14-16, 2011
Seminole Ridge High freshman Connor Piegaro will join nearly 10,000 middle school, high school and university participants from 16 countries around the world to compete in the action-packed 2011 VEX Robotics World Championship at the Walt Disney World® Resort near Orlando, Florida on April 14-16, 2011.
Round Up, the 2010-2011 VEX Robotics Competition Game, is played on a 12’x12’ square field where two alliances composed of two teams each compete against one another. Each match consists of a twenty-second autonomous period where robots are controlled by onboard software, followed by two minutes of human-operated play. The object of the game is to attain a higher score than your opponent alliance by having your robot place round tubes upon goalposts, owning goalposts, and by your robot climbing the ladder in the center of the field and hanging high off the ground.
Erich Landstrom, Seminole SECME school coordinator, points out that Seminole SECME had great success in their inaugural year of VEX Robotics Competitions. The Hawks won the Miami VEX Round Up Qualifier in October, and finished second at the South Florida Championship in December and the “Mayhem in Miami” in January. This tournament’s trip to the playoffs shows that our robots are clearly to be reckoned with, a Cinderella story of circuits and steel at bot ball. Landstrom is very proud of the Hawks hard work. “Giving SECME students the opportunity to work with the VEX robots promotes education in the areas of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and teaches critical life skills such as teamwork, project management and problem solving. But celebrating National Robotics Week at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex gives the event mainstream recognition similar to that of an international sporting event.”
This year, almost 600 out of the nearly 4,000 VEX Robotics Competition teams have earned the right to bring their robotic masterpieces to the “Happiest Place on Earth” where they will form strategic alliances with other teams and challenge their toughest competitors playing the game Round Up. All attending teams qualified for the tournament after dedicating countless hours to honing their building, programming and strategy skill sets to outperform others in order to reach the international stage.
The VEX Robotics program is in support of The White House's STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) initiative to get kids engaged in higher learning, and recently received attention from President Obama who visited a Miami Central High School classroom where he interacted with students excelling in STEM education through VEX Robotics. To show his support at the World Championship, Congressman Ralph Hall, senior member of the US House of Representatives and chair of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology – which funds NASA and the National Science Foundation – will cheer teams on, alongside other keynote attendees including Mele Williams, staff director of the Subcommittee on Research and Science Education; executives from Boy Scouts of America; and, of course, Mickey Mouse and friends. Geek goddess Kari Byron, from The Discovery Channel’s MYTHBUSTERS series and host of The Science Channel’s hit show HEAD RUSH, will serve as master of ceremonies to guide teams and spectators through the final award ceremony on the last day of competition. Fans can follow the competition and sign up for real-time competition news and results via live streamcasts, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube updates. For more information visit RobotEvents.com/championship.
As the fastest growing robotics program in the world, the VEX Robotics Competition is organized by the REC Foundation, and the 2011 VEX Robotics World Championship serves as the final event of the 2010-2011 competition season.
In addition to the middle and high school VEX Robotics Competitions, the 2011 VEX Robotics World Championship will put 35 university teams in the spotlight as they strive for the VEX Robotics College Challenge World Champion title. The BEST Robotics Competition National Championship will take place in the Jostens Center, and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy AROW water robotics competition will be held at Champion Stadium. Boy Scouts of America will host a booth on Saturday, April 16, to showcase the new Robotics Merit Badge, and more than 20 scouts will be in attendance, aiming to be some of the first to complete the robotics merit badge requirements and receive the newly debuted badge from scout executives during the final award ceremony Saturday afternoon.
Partners and sponsors of the 2011 VEX Robotics Competition World Championship include Autodesk, NASA, EMC Corporation, Intelitek, Innovation First International, iD Tech Camps, the REC Foundation, Automation Direct, Northrop Grumman, Microchip, the United States Coast Guard Academy, and the Robotics Academy at Carnegie Mellon University.
