The VEX Robotics 2024-25 season launched in May with the introduction of this year’s game: “High Stakes.”
In “High Stakes,” robots with a size limit of 18” x 18” must collect and deposit rings onto different stakes across the field in competition against opposing teams.
This fall, the school’s five teams have been busy after school on Blue Days until 5, and on Red Days between 7-9 p.m. Their activity-frenzied room is located near the MAP quad, where they also have a game field to practice maneuvers.
Diagram of the VEX Robotics “High Stakes” field.
The teams are on track to have their robots ready to compete in their first tournament on Oct. 13, which they are hosting on campus. They will be attending various competitions throughout the year, with regular season tournaments from October to February, with the goal of going to the World Championship in April.
Building a VEX robot requires thorough game and competitor analysis. Teams, made up of an average of six members, often review robot reveal videos from other teams on YouTube and similar platforms, especially since many teams create early builds before the competition season begins.
This year’s game will require adding additional avenues of complexity to the robot build.
“We need to build a simple, efficient elevator mechanism that allows us to hang on the rungs of the central ladder, the structure that robots climb at the end of the match,” said sophomore Aidan Liu, a member of Team 95071V. “We also want our drivers to have the ability to efficiently maneuver our robot and adapt to the constantly changing environment of matches.”
The teams are also focused on programming their robots right now. The autonomous mode section of a VEX game takes place in the first 15 seconds of a match where the robot moves solely by code, and after that is the driver-control period for 1 minute and 15 seconds where a driver manually drives the robot, both totalling to, totalling the match time to 2 minutes. The 95071V team is hoping to code a consistent autonomous mode for their bot in order to gain a point lead early on in the match.
Speaking of the general atmosphere surrounding the program, sophomore Krisha Muddu of team 95071X said, “Everybody is really dedicated this year, so I feel like we will do well since we’re trying to start off the new season strong.”
95071E: Andrew Zeng, Magnus Lin, Nicole Hao, Sethan Sun
95071X: Adit Sharma, Alex Yaung, Bryan Zhao, Krishna Muddu, Luke Zhang, Richard Lee
95071V: Aidan Liu, Ishin Lidman, Ruiyan Zhu, Ryan Sun, Sunny (Mantin) Kok, Yuvaan Parwaney
95071R: Eungyo (Lia) Go, Happi Li, Madison Ng, Rebecca Chen, Shivanshi Saund, Vivian Lei
95071U: Zisu Chen, Samarth Hangud, William Deklich, Rachel Chen, Matthew Lee, Jemma Tsang
