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Daniel Cody, 10, and Ben Radley, 10, from Russell St school compete in the VEX IQ National Championships in Palmerston North.
When it comes to this year’s robotics championships, teamwork is the key to success as opponents become teammates.
Palmerston North played host to the VEX IQ National Championships this weekend, with pupils from around the country competing.
Kiwibots national operations manager Michelle Hazeleger-Mollard said the competition gave the school children the chance to showcase their talents in robot designing, building, programming and driving.
The game involved working together with another team to score as many points as possible, which encouraged teamwork.
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College Street Normal School students Yilei Teng, 11, Toby Brown, 10, Sayon Sircar, 10, and Nicolas Chen, 10, take a break from the action.
“The whole game is always two teams, and it’s collaborating and working together to win, they can’t win on their own, we always have two teams winning,” Hazeleger-Mollard said.
The event usually involved 300 to 400 pupils from all over the country, but numbers had to be lower this year to accommodate Covid-19 restrictions.
This year 30 teams would compete in two separate events over two days, one for the elementary school teams and one for the middle school teams. The grades were elementary and middle school because the competition was aligned with the United States.
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Robots are used to fling balls up into the goal or hang on the bars for points.
The winning teams qualified to go to the VEX World Championships in Dallas, Texas later this year.
Due to Covid-19 and travel restrictions the championship teams may not get to the US, but they would be invited to compete internationally through live remote tournaments.
The game they were competing in was called Pitching In. Points were awarded for getting balls in the goal or hanging the robot off a bar.
Two teams work together to score as many points as possible in one minute, with the controls switching from one teammate to another after 30 seconds.
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Kayson Lee, 10, and Ivo Zheng, 10, from Skywalker Robotics club take on Jack Teekman, 11, and Grace Kokich, 10, from Manchester St School.
Grace Kokich, 10, from Manchester Street School, said she had been doing robotics for three years and she enjoyed making new friends through the competition.
She liked being able to make different kinds of robots, but it could be stressful if the robot broke or didn’t work properly during the competition.
Kayson Lee, 10, and Ivo Zheng, 10, had travelled down from Auckland where they were both members of the Skywalker Robotics Club.
Their robot was a Spitfire Catapult and was designed to throw balls up into the goal. It had taken them about a month to build.
Zheng said having to work with another team meant they had to figure out each other’s strengths and how they could best work together.
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