SHS and Redwood VEX teams host qualifier tournament

Photo by Beverly Xu

A robot from Cupertino high school drives across the field to score a “triball,” or a plastic, acorn-shaped game object.

After hosting a hectic VEX tournament last year with over 300 participants from 30 teams across the Bay Area, Saratoga High’s and Redwood Middle School’s VEX teams collaborated once again this year to host a regionals qualifier on Oct. 8. 

Over 450 participants came to the high school’s large and small gyms to compete in this year’s game, “Over Under,” where robots score acorn-shaped “triballs” into goals.

Six SHS VEX teams and 7 RMS VEX teams played in hopes of qualifying for the March 8 weekend regional tournament, where teams can then compete to earn a place in the VEX World Championships. The highest placer, team 95071X from SHS, was seeded third but was ultimately eliminated in the quarterfinals. Ultimately, high school teams 1095R and 11101B from Cupertino and San Jose, respectively, came out as the tournament champions. 

Hosting a tournament of such scale required months of planning and work by members of both the VEX student leadership and parent volunteers, according to parent Alice Chang. Discussion about re-hosting the tournament began in early June by Redwood parents. In mid-August, they reached out to the SHS VEX team to coordinate logistics such as the venue, volunteers and technology usage.

Despite having a relatively early start in planning, Chang thinks starting a publicity campaign even earlier would be better. 

“We hope to see more elementary, middle and high school student spectators come out so that they can see the excitement of VEX in person,” she said.

Chang and other organizers had to take measures to ensure that referees were well-trained, that the new field-control systems and live streams were maintained and that volunteers were clear on obligations and communications.

As an early-season tournament, the event required referees to anticipate edge-case situations and interpret the rules of this year’s ball moving game to present the fairest ruling. To ensure their success, the head referees of the tournament, SHS VEX parents James Lee and Ajay Sharma, received refereeing training at the regional tournament in Dublin and met to discuss game rule updates.

In addition to setting up for a live stream of the event, parents needed to anticipate bugs in the field control system that was introduced earlier this spring. In spite of their efforts, one team using two game controllers still had a problem with the control system, delaying the tournament. 

Nevertheless, Chang said, the efforts of volunteers significantly trimmed the delay down; last year, the tournament was delayed over four hours due to unforeseen technical issues — whereas this year it was only an hour late. To Chang, having a large group of roughly 30 volunteers was crucial to run the event.

“It is always wonderful to see the generations of alumni students and their parents come back to support us,” Chang said. “We are tremendously thankful to Saratoga High School, especially assistant principal Matt Torrens and the custodial staff for helping us run a smooth event.”