The Bemidji VEX Robotics program has sent teams to Texas to compete in the world championships for the past three years, and this year, they’re sending more teams than ever.
11 teams started, and now three remain. But even though the teams from Bemidji Middle School and High School had a very successful regular season and did well at state, worlds is on a whole different level.
“It kind of brings a new challenge because there’s the whole language barrier there,” said Eric Bittmann, a 218 Ways To Break Down team member. “There’s a lot more planning we have to do with things like Google Translate, trying to get ways to talk to our teammates and strategize before the matches. And so there’s that whole other element other than, it’s the most competitive robotics of the year.”
Students have to build the robots, program them, and fix any mistakes or damage from competition.
“For this game, there’s quite a few different tasks, and it actually makes it hard because they have limited resources of what they can use.,” explained Bemidji VEX Robotics Coach Bryan Anderson. “They can have eight motors and they can have two pneumatic tanks. For the different tasks they need to do, there are picking up goals; there is actually grabbing rings and placing them on goals; there’s grabbing rings and placing them on side stakes [on] the perimeter of the field. And at the end of the game, they also try to get the robots to climb on the center tower.”
Although the focus of the competitions is on the robots themselves, the focus of the robotics season as a whole is about teaching kids valuable life lessons.
“Just to see these kids grow just in their self-awareness and their confidence, that’s what we’re here for.” said Anderson. “The robot is how we get to have fun, but there’s a lot of other things behind it that go on, making them better people.”
And although everyone has their own job—fixing, directing, driving—robotics still requires a team.
When asked what his favorite aspect of robotics was, Nicholas, a Lord of the Donuts team member, answered, “Having support and just learning, too. Learning and also winning. It’s really nice to … be able to learn how to work with a team.”
Bringing that team to a competition that gathers over 50 nations together is no easy feat.
“On my weekends, I usually bring it home and we work on it on the weekends,” said Packout Predators team member Jarret. “Some of my teammates come over and we have the other team come over as well. We have fields at our house, so a lot of our weekends go into robotics as well.”
The world championship will be taking place in Dallas, Texas in just a few weeks. The high school competition will last from May 6th through the 8th, and the middle school contest will be the 9th through the 11th.
