The weekend of March 5, all nine of Bellarmine College Prep’s VEX robotics teams competed in the 2022 Northern California VRC High School State Championship - SILICON VALLEY in Milpitas.
According to Ann Johnson, Bellarmine’s robotics moderator, VEX splits California into two regions, North and South, and holds three State Championships in each region as World Championship Qualifying events. Approximately 30-40 teams qualify for each State event and each State event qualifies at most six teams to the World Championship.
“We had an amazing day, winning the tournament, qualifying for the VEX Robotics World Championship and taking home four of the eight judged awards!” an elated Johnson reported following the event, and she provided the following recap:
- 8 teams progressed to the elimination rounds: 254A, 254B, 254D, 254F, 254J, 254M, 254W, 254X
- 4 teams - 254F, 254X, 254D, 254A - progressed to the quarter finals, and ended up playing each other in the same bracket
- 2 teams - 254F, 254D - battled it out against each other in the semi-finals and 254F (Matt Morrison, Elliot Kim, Elijah Chau) won the event with alliance partner 11101B (Barcbots from Cupertino) with a score of 254-232 :) and qualified for the VEX World Championship in May!
- 254F also won the Design Award - this award recognizes a team that demonstrates an organized and professional approach to the design process, project and time management, and team organization and is also a World Championship qualifying award
- 254B (Zain Singh, Oliver Wouters, Matthew Doan, Justin Kim) won the Create Award - this award recognizes a team who has built a robot that incorporates the most creative engineering design solution to the challenges of this season’s game.
- 254A (Aaron Adams, Anson Chee, Steven Jeon, Michael Phan) won the Amaze Award - this award recognizes a team that has built the most consistently high scoring and competitive robot.
- 254J (Joseph Vazhaeparampil, Anshul Vadlamudi, Aneesh Bairagi, Ethan Zuo) won the Innovate Award - this award recognizes a team with the most effective and efficient design process.
Congratulations to all involved, and best wishes as they journey to the VEX World Championship in Dallas, Texas, May 5-7.