Robot Wars

Thirteen-year-old Jordan Conelias makes building a robot look easy, as he quickly sifts through a bin of quarter-sized parts, snaps them into place and grabs a bucket of blue balls and begins to feed them to machine.

The robot pushes the balls upward on a long arm, ready to carry them to a new home.

In competition, the robot will have one minute to carry as many balls as it can and deposit them into a bucket across the room.

And, if Conelias and his teammates make the right adjustments, control the robot well and explain the engineering behind it, they could bring home a world championship title.

Ten students from Nolan Middle School left Tuesday for Anaheim, Calif., where they compete this week in the 2014 VEX Robotics World Championship Middle School Division, which runs April 23 through April 25.

Students competing:
Yoshi Torralva
Ben Varah
Evan Lynch
Chris Miller
Griffin Hudson
Cayla Dammann
Tim Ackaway
Travis Earp
Serena Rojas
Jordan Conelias

About the contest
VEX IQ Challenge — Students build a robot using the VEX IQ robotics platform to solve an engineering challenge presented in the form of a game. Team members work together to compete in challenges that showcase their robot’s skills in driver-controlled and autonomous challenges. They also must complete a research project that outlines how a math topic of their choice applies to robotics.

VEX Robotics Competition — Students use the VEX Robotics Design System to build robots to score points in qualification and elimination matches and skills challenges. Students also submit notebooks on the design of their robots and are interviewed about their robot and the evolution of its design.

Contact Pam Eubanks at [email protected]