Danbury High School Mad Hatters robotics team hosted its second annual regional Vex robotics competitionro

DHS host of recent regional Vex robotics qualifier

Danbury middle school students make inaugural appearance            

The Danbury High School Mad Hatters robotics team hosted its second annual regional Vex robotics competition on Saturday.

There were 35teams with 300 students participating in the “Danbury Connecticut Technology Engineering Education Association (CTEEA) Vex Nothing But Net Qualifier.” DHS runs five teams with five robots. Team 5150E took robot skills champion, awarded to the driver scoring the most points in one minute. Team 5150D received its first-ever Design Award, for having the most comprehensive engineering notebook.

The game for the 2015-16 competition year is “Nothing But Net,” an exciting, fast-paced game in which robots try to score in a variety of ways. Each year’s engineering challenge is presented in the form of a game. Students, with guidance from their teachers and mentors, use the VEX Robotics Design System to build innovative robots designed to score the most points possible in qualification matches, elimination matches and Skills Challenges.  The object of Nothing But Net is to attain a higher score than the opposing alliance by scoring balls and bonus balls in a team’s low and high goals, and by elevating robots in the Climbing Zone.

The event brought together teams from the Southern New England region and was a qualifier to compete in the Southern New England Championship tournaments. Danbury’s teams D and F previously qualified for the regional competition. This year, the Westside Warriors from Danbury’s Westside Middle School Academy (Team 99583) made its first appearance, posting a 3-2 record and finishing 13^th place out of 35 teams.

The competitive robotics club, Team 5150, is an afterschool club led by team adviser and DHS Technology Education Teacher Erik Savoyski, who said the skills learned in his DHS Honors Robotics Course prepare students for Team 5150. The course engages students in science, technology, engineering and math and helps prepare students for tomorrow’s high-tech workplace. Working within the VEX robotics platform, Team 5150 has competed across Connecticut and New England for the past five years and qualified for the VEX World Championships. 

Students on the team learn skills such as planning, brainstorming, collaboration, and teamwork in response to the challenges and obstacles. Problems are solved by individual efforts, or through interaction with their teammates and mentors. They experience firsthand the discipline of completing projects within timeframes. Robotics represents the perfect storm of applied physics, computer programming, integrated problem solving, networking, and leadership.

The next competition will be Saturday, Feb. 13 at the University of New Haven.