HHMS Robotics team places in top 5

Two teams bring home awards at Kalahari Classic

Three of the Hamilton Heights Middle School (HHMS) Robotics teams qualified and competed in the finals at this year’s Kalahari Classic VEX IQ Robotics Competition in Sandusky, Ohio, on Jan. 21 and 22.

HHMS’ top team, 214F, finished in fifth place (Royce Bowyer, Ryder Holt, Grayson Pickering, Linley Bryan). In addition, Team 214B (Mikko Kikta, Rylee Mellinger, Tommy Girolamo, and JD Crask) won the Judges Award for their outstanding interview and effective communication skills while Team 214A (Wyndham Jung, Camden Millikan, Lilly Higgins, Maddy Higgins, Levi VanAlstine and Reagan VanKirk) won the Build Award for the construction of their robot and for flawlessly documenting it in their engineering notebook.

Photo provided

Robotics club members from Hamilton Heights were among the hundreds of young bright minds from across the Midwest and beyond to compete for a chance to qualify for the world’s largest international youth robotics event, VEX Worlds, set for April in Texas.

Tournament judges evaluate robotics teams based on how their robots are designed, how they solve assigned problems, overall usability and the team’s record of project management. In the interview phase, teams are evaluated on their explanation of the design process and strategy, teamwork, respect, and professionalism along with feedback for improvement.

Teams, who are required to keep an engineering design notebook to explain their building process, advance in the competition based on their robot’s performance and professionalism.

The Kalahari Classic is set up similar to VEX Worlds to provide a fun, challenging, and high-level competition that draws elementary, middle, and high school teams from around the country. In addition, it qualifies two teams at each level for VEX Worlds – the tournament champions and winner of the excellence award. The tournament champions are whoever achieves the highest score, while judges determine the excellence award winners based on scores, interviews and their engineering design notebooks.

The Kalahari Classic is a VEX Robotics signature event that takes place annually at the Kalahari Convention Center in Sandusky, Ohio. It is the second-largest youth robotics event in the United States.