By TED GAUNT, Contributor
Vandegrift High School hosted a 28-team robotics league championship tournament on January 27. This highly competitive field of 28 Austin-area teams played 40 game matches to find out which robotic teams would win awards and go to the next level tournaments.
Vandegrift’s ViperBots teams dominated the competition by winning a majority of the judged awards, and advancing 8 ViperBot teams to either the semi-area qualifier at Kipp Austin Collegiate on February 10, or to the area championships held at Cedar Ridge HS on February 24, which is free and open to the public.
ViperBots Ouroboros won the top judged award – Inspire 1st Place – due to their innovation, community outreach, documented process, and presentations. Team member Sophia Zhang encourages others to try it out, saying “Robotics is an absolutely amazing opportunity to learn and grow both as a person and academically. It’s also a great opportunity to meet new people and even some of your closest friends.”
ViperBots dominated the fi eld of 28 Austin-area teams and won the league championship.
More coverage on pages 14-15. Photo by Eliana Fernandes
Team ViperBots Leviathan led the winning alliance to dominate the robot game. Together with team LightSaders, they recorded the highest score (295 points) in Texas, and the 8th highest score in the World. The winning team alliance includes ViperBots team Hydra. Leviathan teammate Anvitha Kandula said, “The most interesting aspect about this season has been learning about the capabilities we have when given a computer and some materials. Seeing this year’s game, I had no clue how we’d fit so many complex features into a tiny robot, but we figured it out. It is incredible to see how different teams took various approaches to reach the same goals.”
Teams advancing directly to the area championship include: ViperBots Ouroboros, ViperBots Leviathan, Chaotic Current, LightSaders, ViperBots QuadX, and ViperBots Hydra.
Additional top award winners include: ViperBots Stryke 1st Place Think, ViperBots SnakeByte 1st Place Connect, ViperBots Copperhead 1st Place Motivate, ViperBots QuadX 1st Place Design, Chaotic Current Finalist Alliance Captain.
Visit ViperBots robotics online at www.viperbots.org to find out more about joining or to inquire about opportunities for corporate sponsorship.
