2022-2023 VEX Robotics Competition - Spin Up

 

 

Thank you BPUSD for supporting these kids to travel while having budget constraints. They sure learned a lot and explored what it is like to be an out of state student. US Create will always be a great platform for competing on a world stage and experience what a marathon session feels like. 

 

What a trip, kids did not qualify for the World Championships but they did have a post season run at the US Nationals or the CREATE US VEX Tournament in Iowa. It is always fun to compete at this level as all competitors are tournament champions, finalist, design, skills or excellence winners. It also gives our students what it feels like to compete in a multi day event as we call them marathons and how they must be discipline enough to compete that this high level for several days in a row while on the road away from home.

 

Most of the teams did well, ending in the middle of the field with all teams going onto the elimination round. I wish they all had pneumatics as not having left them all leaving about 60-100 points on the floor. The brightest news is that we had the opportunity to reconnect with teams we have met in the past and new teams from around the world.

 

Finally, knowing that it would be possibly the one of the last trips for Mr. Johnson to Iowa and to the US CREATE. I had the entire team and parents support Mr. Johnson as the Teacher of the Year for the US CREATE. To our surpise Mr. Johnson won this award! In a turn of events, the organization recognized the force behind the effort and also award Mr. Lau with his own award as Co-Teacher of the year! With this concludes the 2022-2023 VRC Spin Up Season. 

 

 

This year we went to the Los Angeles State Championships as there was going to be a daylight saving change on the San Diego State Championships and I did not want my teams to be late or out of it because of the time change. So we knew going into the State Championships without a relabliable shooter or end game mechanics we little chance to advancing to the World Championships. However, even with the handicap the kids actually did pretty well.

 

68689R was 3-4-1 ranked #26 on the day. After a long delay during the tournament and help from Damien's highschool tech support we found out that the R team has been playing with a broken remote all season. As when they connect to the VEXnet their robot was not being controlled a 100%. After what it seems like 2 hours of removing the brain, looking at the programming and finally swapping out the remote we found the problem! Lesson learned always bring an extra good remote! 68689R is my all six grader team with no experience at all selected 462T to pair up with in the elimination rounds. They lost in the Round of 16 to 884A and 462A the tournament finalists.

 

68689X was 4-4-0 ranked #23 on the day. Hot on the day with their newer robot design catapult. The catapult would still jam but they have figured a way to unjam the disc while driving. They paired up with 6517C in this elimination round. During the Round of 16 they were defeated by 6446B and 3324M.

 

68689A was 5-3-0 ranked #17 on the day. Still running on their old robot and having problems building their new flywheel had to resort to using their older robot design. The robot did show its age at this competition as not able to shoot discs were a major handicap. They paired with 77938A in the elimination rounds and ended their day in the round of 16 against of all teams 68689R and lost.

 

68689V was 7-1-0 ranked #4 on the day. This robot can produce high scores only problem the discs had a chance to jam on the shooter itself. 68689V was using their newer design but the cata would jam at the most unopportune time. They had to practice switching out the cata's axle as it has been breaking during practice and it finally broke during a tournament. 68689V selected 6517M as their alliance partner, they lost to 8838E and 7700P in the Round of 16.

 

Our first long trip away from home. Many of the kids were not expecting a stiff competition but were pleasantly surpised on the competition San Diego held. It was also the opportunity to meet the defeating World Champions all under the same roof. Of course no trip was complete to San Diego without visiting the taco stand across the street.

 

 

68689R was 6-0-1 ranked #3 on the day. Shooting much better that ever however not having an way to intake disc only limits how much offense they could produce on the day. 68689R is my all six grader team with no experience at all selected 88873A to pair up with in the elimination rounds. They beat out 77938A and 68689A in the Round of 16, defeated 385P and 6517X in Quarterfinals, but lost to 7700B and 48884A in the Semifinals. They were finally awarded with the Judges Award at this tournament. 

 

 

This is BP STEM's second full tournament in the year. This is the first tournament they were using their version 2 robot. There were so many bugs on the robots we were pleasantly surpised that we went so far into the tournament. So much more to do with so little time left.

 

68689R was 3-2-0 ranked #14 on the day. Shooting much better that ever however not having an way to intake disc only limits how much offense they could produce on the day. 68689R is my all six grader team with no experience at all selected 9078X to pair up with in the elimination rounds. They beat out 91625C and 9078W in the Round of 16, but lost to 9078Z and 91625E in the Quarterfinals.

 

68689A was 3-2-0 ranked #12 and 68689V was 3-2-0 ranked #9 on the day.on the day. 68689A was still using their older model robot as verison 2 robot was not ready. This robot can produce high scores only problem the discs had a chance to jam on the shooter itself. 68689V was using their newer design but the cata would jam at the most unopportune time. 68689V selected 68689A as their alliance partner, they beat out 9413A and 2822E in the Round of 16, but met their match in the Quarterfinals against, 2822F and 2822A.

 

68689X was 5-0-0 ranked #3 on the day. Hot on the day with their newer robot design catapult. The catapult would still jam but they have figured a way to unjam the disc while driving. They paired up with 94773A Rancho Starbucks of Whittier in this elimination round. Both team did well in Round of 16 against 9078Y and 57350A, did well again in Quarterfinals against 6636A and 91625B, pulled off the impossible during Semifinals aganist 2822F and 2822A with both shooter not working well during Semifinals. During the Finals again, they were defeated by 9078Z and 91625E both team were shooting better than we were and won the tournament. 

 

 

BP STEM Academy again was invited to particate in the Rio Hondo League. Unlike last year where we only had 3 teams join, this year we had all 4 teams join! The 4 teams: 68689A - three boys 7th grade team, 68689R - six mix gender, 4 boys and 2 girls 6th grade team, 68689V - a mixed gender 1 boy and 3 girl team 8th grade team, and 68689X - four boy 7th grade team. All 4 teams did well throughout the league. 68689X came in ranked 2nd with a record of 16-3-0, 68689V ranked 4th with a record of 15-4-0, 68689A ranked 5th with the same record of 15-4-0, and 68689R ranked 7th with a record of 14-5-0.

 

68689X in elimination playoffs selected their sister team 68689A to become their alliance partner. This was a strategic play as their were not many teams that could effectively shot in mid season play. The kids were driving well throughout the competition and won round of 16 with ease. In Quarterfinals, Semifinals and Finals: these two teams brough out the big guns and started to shoot and play defensively once they had a led. Only in the finals, their opponents out shot them 2-1 and with X team not having a shooter or an end game mechanism their league ended with them being finalists and a trip to the State Championships. 

 

68689V in elimination playoffs selected 2822D from Spartan Design to become their alliance partner. This particular team lost early in the round of 16 to 9078X and 43125C. 68689V also performed well in the Robot Skills Challenge driving with an impressive score of 78 points with a program score of 54 points giving them a combined score of 132 points which was at the time ranked 124th in the World! These kids did also win the Robot Skills Challenge for the league with that impressive score.

 

68689R in elimination playoffs selected 91625C from Brea Bobcats to become their alliance partner. Kids won their round of 16 and gets defeated by another nonshooting teams 51521C and 9413D in the Quarterfinals. Not bad for 6th graders that had issues building and generally working as a team.

This is a game within the game. Object is to score as many points as possible within the 1 minute timeline while attempting it solo. 

 

Unfortantely for this year, we did not recieve our pneumatics at all so we did not have endgame mechanism built in time, leaving about 60points in total on the floor. Yet, this our kids did pretty well for leaving that many points behind.

 

68689R - Ranked #434 in the World - Combined score 137 | Program 44 | Driver 93

68689V - Ranked #463 in the World - Combined score 132 | Program 54 | Driver 78

68689X - Ranked #623 in the World - Combined score 108 | Program 32 | Driver 76

68689A - Ranked #654 in the World - Combined score 105 | Program 32 | Driver 73