Berry Botics

Berry Botics 

By Addy Fawcett 1/15/2025

Twenty-one teams and dozens of student engineers came together to compete head-to-head in the VEX Robotics competition Thursday, January 15th, at Cranberry High School, putting the robots they built to the test. 

Cranberry has participated in VEX Robotics for eight years, with the program being led by Zachary Bedee and Daniel O’brien. VEX Robotics is a program that introduces students to the world of robotics, encouraging their curiosity in engineering and problem-solving skills.

This year’s challenge, “Mix & Match,” required crews to build a robot that grabs and stacks plastic “pins” in order to gain points. Bonus points were awarded to teams that were able to complete more difficult tasks, such as stacking multi-color towers and placing pins on top of an elevated structure. Teams were given one minute to utilize every opportunity to gain points and advance in the competition. 

Before the competition began, all robots went through a mandatory inspection to ensure measurement, material, and coding requirements were met. 

The competition started with skills matches, which consisted of one team and three referees to accurately count points collected in one minute, providing each crew with an opportunity to test their prepared coding and robot driving skills. Every team was given three attempts in each category. The top scores from both were combined to determine the Skills Award winner. 

Following skills matches, teams moved to qualification matches, which consisted of placing two randomly paired teams together and having them collaborate in the same arena to get the most points. In total, there were eighty-four qualification matches, with each of the twenty-one teams competing eight times. Scores were added together and averaged out to determine placement. 

The top eight teams from the qualification round then advanced to the final round, where alliances were formed based on qualification rankings. The alliance that scored the most points earned the Teamwork Champion Award. 

In addition to building and competing, teams were encouraged to journal the process and trials of constructing their robot. These journals were evaluated by upperclassmen volunteers using a rubric that contributed to the judge-based awards. 

Awards were divided into performance-based and judged categories. 

The Teamwork Champion Award is given out to the alliance that had the most points in the final round. The alliance that won this award consisted of the team “The Bubble Bots,” from Cranberry Junior High, and team “Bounty”  from Cranberry Elementary. “American 50/50” and “The Fab 5” weren’t far behind. The Skills Award, presented to the team with the highest combined driver and coding score from the skills matches, was awarded to team “Bubble Bots.” 

The Judges' awards are determined by teamwork, enthusiasm, effort, and sometimes performance. Six awards were presented to those who competed. The Energy award was presented to team “The Unicorns.” “The Bubble Bots” won the Sportsmanship award. The Judges Award, which goes to a team that deserves special recognition, went to “Slick Chicks.” “American 50/50” was awarded the Build Award. The Innovate Award was given to team “The Yotta Yetis.” “The Color Guard,” a team from Cranberry’s Elementary school, was given the Design Award.

A total of 17  teams that competed will move on to the regional competitions hosted at North Clarion, Keystone, and Cranberry schools. Each group will have 3 chances to attain one award that will qualify them to move on to the state-wide competition held at PennWest Clarion. 

The Berry Botics competition once again highlighted the ingenuity, creativity, and ability of student engineers.