WHEELING- This weekend the lights were on, fans were in the stands and the kids were ready to compete at the Palace on the Hill at Wheeling Park High School. However, this time there was no basketball, cheering or wrestling to be found. This weekend the competition was between fierce competitors driving their engineered creations into “battle”. This weekend Wheeling Park played host to a VEX Robotics competition, wherein twenty-eight teams from a variety of schools both middle and high school took part.
For those unfamiliar with the field of competitive robotics here is a rundown. Students compete in a competition set by the VEX Robotics company each year. The competition began in 2007 with a few programs across the country now with over twenty thousand competitors worldwide, last year’s Worlds Competition had representatives from fifty plus countries. Two local teams competed at the World’s Competition last year, one from Bridge Street Middle School and one from Wheeling Park High School. The competition has varying rules. This year’s is called “Spin Up” where the simplest definition of the competition is which team can build a robot to fling or shoot more foam discs into goals. There is more to it than that but that is the simplest rundown.
This year at the Wheeling Park competition, each team competed in eight qualifying matches to determine seedlings for the elimination round. After the qualifiers are completed, each team gets to pick another to form an “alliance” with for the elimination round. This begins with the first seeded team selecting with each team having a right of refusal, which then eliminates them being selected until their turn to pick. The first seeded team entering the elimination round was team 85403A Robo-Raiders from Triadelphia Middle School with the number two seed being team 62629W Iron Patriots Mk. 1 from Wheeling Park High School.
The elimination round was fierce with many teams being eliminated. The final four alliances when the semifinals arrived were: Team 66465C and Team 66465F both from Bridge Street Middle School up against Team 26003A & Team 26003R both from Sherrard Middle School who would go head-to-head in a tough match with the Rams edging out BSMS 86-65 playing strong defense against their shooting robot preventing scoring in the high goal. The other match of the semis was between team 62629W and 62629Y from Wheeling Park High School against 85403C from Triadelphia Middle School and Team 26571A from North Marion High School, this match was tightly contested with the alliance from Wheeling Park winning due to their impressive end game expansion. The match would end with a Wheeling Park victory 47-34 but a strong showing from an alliance of a middle school & high school. The final match was now set between Wheeling Park and Sherrard Middle Alliances. Two members of each alliance, Team 62629W Iron Patriots Mk 1 and Team 26003A George Drinks Water are familiar foes having faced off in the finals in the tournaments held at Bridge Street Middle, Brooke High School and now at the Wheeling Park Tournament.
The finals match became a battle for the roller, which were ignored in my rundown post but are worth 10 points each if you rotate each to your alliance’s color. The teams from Sherrard played strong defense gaining three of the four rollers and blocking WPHS from making a push in, Park finally cut through the strong defense of one of the Sherrard Robots stealing one of the rollers. As the endgame approached it seemed clear the battle would come down to the old “rivals” 26003A & 62629W and their endgame expansion. Wheeling Park had won many matches on the day with their strong expansion. As the endgame alarm blared each team jockeyed for position with Team 26003A ramming Iron Patriots Mk1 at the last second causing their expansion to fire out of the arena. The crowd from Sherrard Middle roared knowing that expansion leaving the arena meant a disqualification. The Sherrard Alliance had finally managed to defeat the team that had plagued them in each of the last two tournaments, who it should be mentioned were the state champions last year. This victory allowed the Sherrard Alliance to qualify for the state competition, while a defeat for Wheeling Park at their home tournament must leave a sour taste in their mouths. Three of their five teams have qualified for the state competition as well.
The awards ceremony came last with many teams receiving awards. The High School Excellence Award, which contains a qualifier to States, was awarded to team 62629W Iron Patriots Mk 1 from. Wheeling Park High School. The Middle School Excellence Award, again which earns a trip to States, was awarded to 85403A Robo-Raiders from Triadelphia Middle School. The Design Award awarded to the team with the most innovative design along with other engineering considerations, which also earns a trip to states, was awarded to 26571A North Marion Robotics from North Marion High School. The Judges award which was awarded to the team found to have kept the best engineering notebook, along with how they implemented the engineering design process through an interview with judges was awarded to Team 26003R RAMbunctious Ravenclaws from Sherrard Middle School.
The next local competition takes place at the John Marshall Field house on Saturday January 28th with competitions beginning in the morning with elimination play taking place in the afternoon. We hope to see you all there as the competition is quite unlike anything we have locally, and the matches will be fierce with attendees from all up and down the Ohio Valley.
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