Robotics and Their Journey to States and Beyond

By: Lincoln Puls

April 8, 2025

   With the Robotics state competition on March 15-16, Colgan’s Robotics teams are working on making the cut for the competition. So far, seven of eight teams have made it to the state competition via wins, points scored, and winning awards like the Innovate Award. Students meet after school on Thursdays and Fridays, modifying and fixing their robot.

   “These kids have probably put in hundreds and hundreds of hours working on these robots…” says chemistry and robotics head coach Lauren Meyer “…I'm super impressed, blown away with all of them.”

   With awards being available like the Innovate Award, teams not only have to be cognizant of their robot being competent to win and score points in competitions but to also be different and unique from other robots. The Innovate Award also holds heavy weight in placements for the state competition.

   “What they look at is how innovative it is compared to other robots and how well that performed,” said Senior Ryan Conte, a part of team 20164X. His team holds a 17-12 record on the season so far. “[The Innovator Award] automatically qualifies for States, but depending on how many world slots that Virginia has it may also qualify you for Worlds at States.”

   With all the moving parts, code, and mechanics in motion in working a robot, challenges may need to be addressed, especially teams with lower amounts of team members compared to others may have more challenges.

   “Our biggest problem this season is nearing one of our important competitions our entire line of code that runs the robot, somehow got deleted,” said Freshman Duncan Morelli, part of team 20164T, their record being 12-5 on the year so far. “And that was extremely inconvenient as we had to rewrite the entirety of the code before the competition date”

   With the season continuing and new faces joining each year teams have to adapt to that and innovate to make their robot ‘better than last year.’ With the VEX policy being that Robotics is a student-centered activity, coaches like Meyers have little to no involvement other than managerial things. But according to Meyers the team members are exceeding their expectations.

   “They're so smart, so innovative,” said Meyer “All of them and I tell them all the time. Most adults cannot do what you're doing. So, just like over the top impressed, you know all.”