The Wrap-Up for VEX Round-Up 2010-2011 Season:

This year VEX had over 3,600 teams compete in the VEX Round-Up Competition Game.  Out of those, approximately 416 teams from China, Canada, Spain, Malaysia, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Singapore, New Zealand, Guatemala, and Colombia participated in this year’s World event.   This does not count the teams which competed in the college division and in the new middle school division .We had two robots which qualified outright and we were called specifically by the president of Robot Events to bring a third to fill in for a late cancellation.  As a team we decided it would be too big an expense to overnight the robot, pay the $750 for registration, and it would stretch us too thin during the competition to have it, so we declined.  He applauded the team on such an adult decision.

We competed in 2 divisions, Science and Technology.  Robot 563B, driven by Michael Ebeling and DJ Llorente Blankenburg and built by Kristian Chavez and Connor Hess-Covozio, finished 42 out of 104 teams in the Science Division, same division where the eventual team of 3 World champions came out of.  We finished 5-4 and were ranked as high as 15^th after going 4-1 early on Friday during the early part of the qualifying rounds.  We had some amazing rounds competing by our self after our partner tipped over in one round and being matched with some lower ranked robots.  But overcoming adversity is part of the challenge.  We had a slim chance of being picked as an alliance partner, but we obviously did not.  Through out the tournament, both teams were complimented by VEX staff members repeatedly on their performance and effort.

Robot 563, driven and built by Mikkel Sandberg, had a much more complicated time.  His first match was scored incorrectly, and after I sought out the change, we succeeded in getting a score change from 30-16 to 30-26.  I did not have conclusive evidence that the score was still in question to get a rematch or judges decision, so we had to accept the defeat.  His second match saw his robot loose field connection and the VEX techs madly work to solve the problem, but again to no avail.  Friday saw a much different competition from his robot where he was able to high hang and perform more to his capabilities.  He finished 96^th out of 104.  It was a difficult tournament for him but he prevailed with his spirits up and a team leader.

So how well did we really do?  We finished the highest we have ever finished, 42 of 104 teams in our division at Worlds.  We had some unfortunate mishaps with our partners and technology, but so did others.  So how does one measure one’s success?  Larry Hoekman, one of our counselors at Nipomo High School, asked me to rate the overall experience without wins and losses on a scale from one to ten since the numbers of wins and losses would not adequately gauge our success or failure.  I felt overall our whole trip was an eight out of ten.  The maturity we demonstrated, the adversity we overcame, and the camaraderie the team members shared was well worth the exhausting effort it took to get to the World Championships in Orlando, FL.  I think they all learned a great deal and were impressed by what it takes for a team to make it to the World competition.  The team is already working on next year’s game, VEX Gateway, trying to solve the problems and challenges it presents.