This year the Design and Technology Department have launched a new robotics club for year 9 based on the VEX Robotics Competition. Participants are challenged with building and programming a robot to complete a set of tasks. The competition has really fired the pupil’s imagination and 3 teams have taken on the challenge, having fun experimenting and designing through robotics.
The VEX IQ competitions typically feature a series of games in which teams’ robots are given points for accomplishing tasks such as stacking items, scoring goals and parking successfully. Teams are required to collaborate, as well as compete against others. Several regional events are held, with the qualifying teams going through to national finals and, ultimately, the World Championship, where the very best from almost 8,500 teams worldwide battle it out. There is a variety of prizes at each level, including awards for design, teamwork and all-round excellence.
The HABS teams competed at three regional events and two, Team Zeus and Team Fusion, have made it through to the National Finals, quite an achievement in their first year. Team Zeus who were crowned Skills Champions at the East Barnet Regional Tournament qualified with the 10th highest skills score recorded in the UK this year. Fusion also qualified by recording the 13th highest score in the UK at the same competition. As only the boys’ third ever competition, qualifying for Nationals is a fantastic achievement.
Design and Technology teacher Shane Ryan, leader of the VEX co-curricular club, said: “My congratulations go to all the boys for their accomplishment. Zeus and Fusion have been working very hard over the last two months and fully deserve to be going to Nationals.”
HABS VEX IQ teams are:
Team Zeus: Ram Patel, Roshan Mediwake, Senitha De Silva, Shyan Shah and Sashotharan Panchalingam
Fusion: Akhtar Ahmad, Oliver Freeman, Ethan Gerrard and Zeshan Hulit
The A team: Rahul Sharma, Noah Arram, Alain Kesterlian, Josh Zinkin and Alexander Dabrowa
At the Vex UK Nationals, Habs came 10th out of 60 teams. We got into the final playoffs and for a short time sat in the top three slots but we were knocked out by more experienced teams.
We won this year’s ‘Create Award’ which is given to teams with robots that incorporate creative engineering solutions.
For some photos taken by the competition please visit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/vexrobotics/albums/72157706063497841
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