2017-2018 VEX Robotics Competition - In the Zone
2017-2018 VEX Game Year - In the Zone
How far we have come! From Zero to Hero in one year!
I dont know where to start VEX World's Championship was much more intense than anybody on our team was ready for. As a first year team and raising to the ranks to World's competitors was just overwhelming but I would never exchange it for the world. The best description is that your weekend competitions are compared to sprints there short 8hours. The pace at Worlds is more like a marathon, 3 days worth of competitions with 8 hour days. We went into this competition as under cards and did not have any pressure to win just make the best of what we got. With our mogo lift breaking down on the first match of the day to not winning a single match until the 3rd day was difficult for all to swallow. Things started to turn around on the last day of competition. I rallied the team and told them to just soak it all in the last day. So we went early to watch the opening ceremony and to our amazement we won the Teamwork Award! Only 26 total trophies for 122 teams less than 10% will ever get to hold one and we were one of those teams. As the day progressed we knew we were not going onto elimination round and focused on the team learning and getting ready for HS competition. I know that this team will forever remember the run we had this year and will still be talking about it to their kids when they are old enough to understand! Team 68689A
VEX World in Kentucky
2018 California Middle School Vex Championship - Pomona
We did not expect to get this far as a 1st year team. We were still in survival mode yet we got to the State's big dance. As being a underdog we had no pressure to perform. But, the team had other ideas. They were fed up not having an awesome auto mode so during 1/2 time break they spend the entire break working on a 20 point auto mode. With 5 matches to go they won every single match ending the day with a record of 7-4 and ranked #10 out of 38. At that point I knew these kids had a chance to really put a speed bump to another team's day. They choose two other local teams that we had worked with before and put a strategy that could work. To our own amazement we steamed rolled every single match until the finals. We knew if we got to the finals we got our foot in the door to Worlds. After finishing semifinals with a "W" we did not care if we won finals but we noticed that we can actually have a shot at the whole enchilada! We lost our first finals match and we lost poorly. The second match went our way and the whole thing was tied up and was going into sudden death. We started the match and won autonomous mode and was up 22points we had a chance, then all things broke down. Both our alliance motors failed and that was the end of the match. We came, we conquered and became humbled in our lost but I must say the team gained a ton of grit throughout the day.
