Two Traverse City West Senior High VEX robotic teams will soon find themselves at Michigan State University.
Both Titan robotics teams 3767X and and 3767A qualified for the VEX Robotics State High School Championship at MSU on Feb. 25.
“We have had at least one team go the last two years and had at least one team go to the world competition,” said Mark Skodack, STEM teacher and robotics liaison.
“We did four tournaments this year as well as worked on our skills. One team qualified for states by performing really well and one other team has gotten progressively better but has been ranked really high for their skills through the state.”
VEX is a school program but it’s also a year-round project. The VEX challenge, which changes every year, is presented to teams across the world in April. Teams then build their robot. Their goal is to design a robot that scores the most points possible.
“They really have to understand the challenge of the game and be able to build a robot that is able to take on the challenge,” Skodack said. “They have to write codes to make it autonomous but they also have to be able to drive it so there is a human element to it, too. They are really doing a lot of things within engineering and programming to make their robot work right.”
Both teams are excited to be headed to the state competition but Skodack said it is really the work of a handful of students that has pushed them this far.
Annalysse Gronda, a 10th-grade student, has taken over a managerial role and takes care of the engineering notebook.
“I really look into what to do and keep track of things we did to the robot and what has worked and what hasn’t worked,” she said.
“I’ve also taken some advice from judges on how to keep records in the notebook. It’s become the center of two awards we won this year and a reason we are going to the state championship and I’m excited to be going again. I think if we keep preparing consistently like we have been, then we will be more than ready.”
