Four Burnaby robots, representing a total of about 1,200 hours of student labour, took to the floor for their last VEX Robotics Competition of the season Saturday.
Accompanied by 14 Alpha Secondary students, robots 502a, 502b, 502c and 502d, were put to the test one last time against 79 other machines from around B.C. and Alberta at the Pacific Northwest Regional Championship at BCIT.
“In the next couple weeks, as soon as worlds wrap up, they’ll release the new game and then we’ll start building our robots for next year,” Alpha robotics teacher Russell Evanisky.
Such is the fate of all VEX robots.
Every spring, after the world championships in April, organizers announce a new skill-testing game, and students around the world spend the rest of the year designing, building and perfecting machines to play the game better than the competition – only to start from scratch once the season wraps up.
This is only Alpha’s third full year of competition, and the school has yet to send a team to worlds – held in Louisville, Ky. every year.
“It’s tough; it’s very tough,” Evanisky said.
Dylan McLean and Patrick Reddy, Grade 12 students in charge of Alpha’s top robot – 502a – had been gunning for the big show all season and captured the Judges Choice Award at the season opener at Alpha on Oct. 15 and the South Island Design Award at Shawnigan Lake Nov. 19.
At their last chance to qualify, the provincial championships in February, however, they didn’t make the quarter final.
At BCIT, they were the only Alpha team to qualify for Division A competition but were eliminated in the quarter final.
Alpha competitors in Division B included Nadiya Scratchley, Kayden Keshani, Morgan O’Neil, Aedan McClain, Daniel Carlin, Jonathon Ina, Callahan Jones, Morgan Xiao Yu, Adit Bhatia, Vince De Leon, Graham Perry and Sam English.
“Overall it was a good season,” Evanisky said.
