Montgomery Catholic Preparatory School’s 2019-2020 robotics competition season is in full swing, and already the RoboKnights have their eyes set on qualifying for the VEX Robotics World Championships. So far, two teams, “Happy Little Accidents” and “The Sevies,” have qualified to compete in the Alabama state competition in the spring.
In the 2018-2019 season, the RoboKnights robots “Lost in the Ross,” “Mamushi,” and “Flex Tape” earned spots in the state competition. Each robot had a strong showing at the state level and Lost in the Ross ended up as a tournament finalist and advanced to the VEX Robotics World Championships that were held in Louisville, Kentucky on April 24-27, 2019. Although Worlds marked the conclusion of that competition season, there was little rest for the teams as the next season’s challenge was announced during Worlds: Tower Takeover. For the RoboKnights, planning began immediately, starting their first builds in May and continuing throughout the summer, even while school was out of session.“I want to win the state competition,” declared senior Arthur Murray, member of Happy Little Accidents and Lost in the Ross. “We were tournament finalists last year, but we want to win this time. We had to get a head start so we’ve been working on our Tower Takeover robot since Worlds.”
Tower Takeover requires robots to place stacks of colored cubes into the corners of the playing field and to place single cubes into “towers” in the middle of the playing field that serve as point multipliers. Robots work in alliances of two to try to score the most points against another alliance of two robots. Since it is early in the season, most teams have focused on completing one task only—either stacking cubes for base points or picking up and placing cubes for point multipliers—and allying with a robot who completes the complementing task.
“We have a grabber robot right now, but we’re working on a stacker robot, too,” said Harrison Vaughn. His team, The Sevies, comprised only of 7th grade students who are in their first year of robot competition, has qualified for the state competition. Happy Little Accidents is a stacker robot, and the two allied at the recent Bots at the Fair competition at the Alabama National Fair with great results. The score in the final round was 53-10.Montgomery Catholic will host the River Region Tower Takeover Qualifying Tournament on November 2 and the River Region Tower Takeover Qualifying Tournament II on February 15. The RoboKnights are proud to host their competitions in Montgomery Catholic’s new gym, which features stadium seating that gives spectators a good view of the playing fields from the stands.
