 |
| 20111204 VRC Gulliver Gateway |
Seminole Ridge SECME students competed in the South Florida Championship of the VEX Robotics Competition (VRC) at Gulliver Preparatory School in Miami on Sunday. VRC Team 1614 consisted of robot drivers sophomore Connor Piegaro and freshman Bert Sivongsay, field scouts junior Kadeem Spencer and sophomore Jesse Mendheim, and programmer Brandon Gearty. To prepare for the competition, the group worked together to design and build a robot (affectionately nicknamed “Iron Dragon”) that could quickly and efficiently solve the specific obstacles and challenges that come with playing the game VEX Gateway.
The goal of Gateway is to attain a higher score than your opponent alliance by scoring barrels and balls in goals, earning bonus points and doubling or negating goals. Two alliances—‘red’ and ‘blue’— are composed of randomly paired teams to partner that compete during a twenty-second autonomous period followed by two minutes of driver-controlled play. The allies work both independently in the isolation zones behind the Gateway, and together in the interaction zone.
The students competed with and against 47 teams from across the state, Melbourne to Miami, from Bradenton to Boca, at the tournament. The Hawks qualified for the quarterfinal’s but were one-and-done during the playoffs. (Their record in the qualifying rounds was 2-4, and just made the playoffs cutoff as team 32). Still, the team’s coach, physics teacher Erich Landstrom, is impressed with the team: “We are building more than robots here - we are shaping our future innovators to positively impact the world around them.”
Each week, Seminole SECME students apply what they’ve learned about science, technology, engineering, and math in order to build these semiautonomous VEX machines. And through the competition students learn an equally important skill set: communication, project management, site management, and composure, because students have to learn to ‘fail faster’: not just how to win. but how to recover from losing. They work together on a variety of challenges and obstacles requiring new problem-solving skills.
Seminole SECME VRC team #1614 raises funds to cover the cost of the robot parts, competition entry fees and transportation expenses by asking the local community for support. Please support Seminole SECME this holiday season and make a matching gift at http://tinyurl.com/AdoptSeminoleSECME . Give $3, $30, or $300 -- all gifts are welcome.
