NightHawk Robotics CA STATE CHAMPS!

This past Saturday 3 MVHS Robotics teams spent their Valentine’s Day showing their love for STEM Education and Robotics as they competed against 35 of the best teams in California.  It was a lot of hard work just to be invited to this tournament as you had to qualify to be there.  3 of our 4 teams made the “show”.

To give you an idea of how tough our region is consider this:  Of the 436 teams in the World Championships last year, 15 made the final round.  Of those 15, 5 were from CA and 4 were from Southern, CA.  Not to mention that a team from Southern CA has won the World Championship 3 out of the last 6 years including us in 2012.

This year’s game is called Skyrise.  The goal is to build a Skyrise Tower out of yellow Skyrise Sections and place your color cubes on the Skyrise Tower and on Posts around the field.  The robots that we have built this year are taller than most adults when fully extended, but before the match starts each robot must be less than 18” x 18” by 18”.  This has proven to be quite the engineering challenge!

Below are the results as well as the members of each team:

Team 569 B finished 19th out of 35 teams in the qualifying rounds. They were selected for the playoffs by the 5th seed alliance.  Their alliance performed brilliantly in the quarterfinals but were defeated by our very own Team 569D semifinals.  However their disappointment was short-lived as making it to the semifinals was enough to punch their ticket for qualification to this year’s VEX Robotics World Championship.  Congratulations Team 569B!

Team 569 C finished the qualifying rounds in 12th place out of 35 teams. They were selected by the 8th seeded alliance.  While thrilled to be in the playoffs they had their work cut out for them as they would have to play the #1 seed in the quarterfinals which happened to be our very own Team 569D.  While they gave the #1 seed more trouble than any other playoff team they ended up being narrowly defeated.  The only disappointment for the entire day was this team not earning a spot to the World Championship.  They are truly deserving of one!  On a brighter note Team 569C won the Energy Award for their enthusiasm, sportsmanship, and positive attitudes while at the tournament.  I am very proud of this team.

Team 569 D finished 13th out of 35 teams in the qualifying rounds.  They were selected by the #1 seeded alliance and their robot never came off the field in the playoffs.  They went undefeated in the playoffs winning the entire tournament and the CA State Championship!  Unfortunately they had to cannibalize 2 of our very own teams along the way. As CA State Champions this team also punched their ticket to Louisville, KY in April for the 2015 VEX Robotics World Championships.

To have 2 of our 3 teams qualify for the world championship in one of, if not the toughest region in the WORLD was overwhelming.  These kids spent all day Friday preparing and all day Saturday competing and it paid off.  Please congratulate each and every one of them.

Here is a video of the Final Match where we won 94 – 51.  This is using a GoPro attached to Dylan Ryan on Team 569D.  You can see firsthand what these kids deal with from this point of view.  Our robot is the one building the yellow skyrises and putting the red cubes around it.  Enjoy!

Also keep in mind the first 15 seconds is called the autonomous period where the robot moves by itself based on the computer program the students have written.  You get a 10 point bonus for winning the autonomous portion and then you have 1:45 to drive the robot to score as many points as possible.  This team has hundreds of hours into this 15 second routine and it paid huge dividends.