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November 18th starts with a 6am wakeup call and our TMSA High School Vex Robotics team packing the van to head to Mayodan, NC. The team competed against 28 other teams from all over North Carolina. TMSA Techno Tigers and their “Trash Bot” were handpicked by the number 1 team to join an alliance for the finals and helped to win 1st place in the tournament. As 1st place winners the Tigers secured a seat in the State Tournament held in April of 2018.
Coach Emre Kelleci and his team of six high students have been working every Saturday since September to build their robot. The team consists of Senior and Team Captain, Aaron Auth, Junior, Ben Jenkins, Sophomores, Allison Vergera and Senih Tosun, and Freshmen, Khristine Bautista and Ethan Natarajan. This is an all new team this year and started as the underdog in the competition. “We named our robot the Trash Bot because we plan on taking out the trash at the competition,” Ethan explains.
Excitement and intensity ruled the air as the team began their day in 15th place out of the 29 teams competing. The first round lead to a change in batteries and replacing some of the faulty parts that stopped the wheels from turning. By the second round the Tigers had found their grove and were able to join forces with their alliance partners to pull out a win. Each round brought a new set of challenges and the team pulled together and persevered.
This year each robot is required to be able to do a multitude of tasks. The teams are awarded points based on each task completed during a round. The points range anywhere from 2 points for merely stacking a yellow cone on a goal to 20 points for moving a “mobile goal” into the smallest scoring goal. Teams compete in alliances of two robots. A single robot usually competes in an average of 6 rounds during an event.
TMSA has had a VEX Robotics team since 2014. According to the VEX Robotics website: VEX Robotics Competition is the largest and fastest growing middle and high school robotics program globally with more than 18,000 teams from 40 countries playing in over 1,350 competitions worldwide. We create tools that educators and mentors will use to shape the learners of today into the problem solving leaders of tomorrow. The Techno Tigers and their “Trash Bot” will fight again on December 9th in Cary, NC. We welcome everyone to come out and support our TMSA Techno Tigers in their battle to be the best bot!
Please email any questions or comments to lauth@tmsacharter.org.
