LAMBEAU FIELD, WI (WTAQ) – More than 250 high school students and mentors from across the country converged on Lambeau Field’s Atrium for the Northeast Wisconsin VEX Robotics Challenge Showdown this week. Over 50 teams competed in a series of challenges involving the robots that are designed, built, and programmed by the students.
“There are new faces and new players – which are all very good. It really shows how there’s a lot of people with a lot of great ideas,” says Alex Prokokis of Green Bay’s Notre Dame Academy, “On the higher end, it’s really competitive and there are a lot of really good players.”
The competition is considered a Signature Event for the Robotics Education and Competition Foundation. That’s a big deal for students competing in the tournament.
“Teams that win here go straight to the world stage. You can skip your more local state tournament and go straight to worlds,” Brandon Frederick of Calabasas, California tells WTAQ News.
Frederick mentioned there are only about a dozen Signature Events across the country.
“We’re looking to secure a position to compete in the world championship. And we were looking at this event as an opportunity to put our teams up against higher levels of competition than what we typically see in Illinois,” says Robert Foster, the coach of a team from Skokie, Illinois.
But it’s not all about winning the competition. Joining a robotics team is similar to joining an athletic team, sort of. It’s still a bit different from your typical high school sport.
“Students are buildings skills that are going to help them beyond high school. They’re learning skills in terms of project management, teamwork, and learning about commitment that most adults don’t really get to work on until they’re in the workplace,” Foster says.
“It forces them to problem-solve, troubleshoot, fix things on the fly under pressure. It makes them talk to people they don’t know and strategize – strategy is huge in this game,” says North Fond du Lac coach Darrell Benson.
There are a lot of different types of robotics competitions, so Brandon’s sister explained exactly what the goal of the game was during the event at Lambeau.
“This year it’s with towers and stacks. So we’re stacking up as many cubes as we possibly can and putting them in goal zones, then coordinating the colors with the towers on the field. It’s always two bots against two bots, and you don’t know your partners until you come here,” says Alyssa Frederick.
That’s right. Teams from across the country have to partner up with each other to out-perform opposing teams.The comaraderie was a common topic when students talked about the benefits of competing in robotics.
“People think that it’s only like mechanical engineering and programming, but it’s actually a lot of social things too,” Maxim from Philadelphia says, “The way that you have to work with teams from all over the place – you really have to interact with people you don’t normally interact with and you learn to work together with other people. That’s one of the important skills I don’t think people realize you get out of this.”
“One of the most important things that it teaches us is how to coordinate well with other people. Not only that, it keeps us on our toes – if something breaks down during a match, we have to get on top of it and try to repair it or work around it,” says Alex Koeberl of Skokie.
The skills transfer to a number of fields. One student we met already had plans to attend college for Cyber Security.
The event itself was larger than most students had every experienced. But the venue of the Lambeau Field Atrium really made the competition larger than life for some participants.
“It’s also really cool being here at Lambeau Field,” Brandon Frederick says.
“It’s a unique venue for the Signature Series, the first one in Wisconsin. So I thought it’d be a good opportunity for any of the students to attend,” Benson of North Fond du Lac says.
“The environment is really crazy, I’ve never been in a building this big for a robotics tournament. Most of the tournaments where we’re from are in crappy North Philly high schools,” says Brandon Windle of Philadelphia.
“This is one of the coolest venues we’ve been at, it’s definitely the largest. It’s really well organized, which really helps speed things along,” Koeberl says, “I might be from Illinois, but GO PACK!”
There were teams from Wisconsin, California, Illinois, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota participating in the tournament.
For more information about robotics competitions, check out the VEX Robotics Competition and Robotics Education Competition Foundation websites.
