On November 5th, high schoolers from all across the state competed in a robotics tournament held at Vestavia's Freshman Campus. A total of 27 teams battled it out in a series of intense matches. The difficulty in robotics stems much further than programming and can be seen in the complex games each team maneuvers.
Before each match, the arenas are set up in the same assortment of disks.
In the first round of qualifying matches, teams are paired up randomly into a collective red and blue team. The two teams must work together against the opposing color to score the most points.
Before they can score, the robot must spin the arena's rollers to display their respective color.
Then, the robot fires the yellow disks it has collected into their respective goal to earn points. However, if the robot misses and the disk instead lands in the tiles surrounding the goal, the opposing color gains a point.
After the 48 qualifying matches concluded, the rankings determined the order of the following phase. In this phase, the individual teams got to choose their pairing for the next series of matches. This process begins with the first place team. Without asking questions, the team may observe the other robots and will then name which team they would like to work alongside.
It may appear that the obvious best course of action would be to choose the highest ranked robot. However, this is often not the case. The paired nature of the tournament means that a more poorly designed robot could be carried by their randomized pairs to a high ranking. And the opposite is true, where a more promising design could be brought down in the rankings by their pairs.
This format fosters an exciting environment in which an underdog team may sweep a surprising victory. Additionally, the teams have the ability to decline a teams pairing proposal, building on to the tournament's suspense.
The pairing process lasted until 13 pairs were formed. Because only 27 teams were in the tournament, only a single team failed to qualify for the next round.
After the remaining matches played out, Vestavia ended the tournament in a promising position to qualify for state. Congratulations to Vestavia Team B on winning first place in the design category! And congratulations to all teams that participate in this immensely impressive and entertaining activity.
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