The VEX Robotics Club has been doing well in recent competitions, getting second place at Winneconne on Jan. 27, 2024. The teams will be moving on to state as well. This year the club has enough people for two teams of three people each, team Chi and team Beta. The club also allows middle school students to join, and there is one on each team.

“Competitions are really chaotic, but amazing. There will be four different groups competing at once. You get paired up with one of those teams and go against two other teams,” adviser Bret Steffen said. “You get ranked after the first round in the morning and later in the afternoon there is a sudden death second round that we usually make it to.” 

Each year the competitions are based around a different game that makes them think and build a robot that can do the tasks needed in that year’s competition. This year the competition’s purpose is to get balls called try-balls into the goal.

“One year’s competition needed you to throw discs at a goal, and we needed to create a robot that could do that,” sophomore Jack Gerber said.

The teams work in the robotics lab every Wednesday after school and even during teacher inservice days. Although on two separate teams, they still make sure everyone and their robots are ready.

“To prepare for competitions as a team we make sure that our robot is together correctly and sturdy and make sure that everybody knows what they are supposed to do at the meet,” Gerber said. “I personally make sure that I am in a good mindset before the competition.”
Competitions start with random matches against other teams. How well a team does in those matches will determine where they are placed in the elimination rounds.The team that wins the elimination bracket wins the meet.

“We were one point away from winning,” Steffen said. “We think we can beat those same teams again next time and we are excited to try.”