After last year’s tournament was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Carroll Robotics team made a comeback in 2021 when they qualified for the VEX World Championship for the eighth year in a row.
Earlier this month, eight Carroll Robotics teams traveled to Redwater High School in Texarkana to compete in the Texas Region 2 VEX Robotics Championship. Three teams ended up qualifying for the World Championship, with one of them becoming a finalist and another one being named the Region 2 tournament champion.
“Most of the students on these teams qualified for the VEX World Championship last year, which ended up getting canceled,” CISD robotics instructor Leah Schwedler says. “The students turned that disappointment into a challenge to make the most of their senior year in robotics.”
For the VEX World Championship, the students will have to design, build, repair and program a robot, as well as document their process in an engineering notebook and a live interview. Since most of their events have been remote this year, Leah says her team is prepared for the new virtual format of VEX Worlds this year.
As proud as she is of the team qualifying for VEX Worlds, Leah says she’s even more proud of how her kids overcame the challenges of the 2020 robotics season during a pandemic.
“They embraced the remote competition format and continued to push themselves in spite of the limitations they faced,” Leah expresses. “Our robotics program has grown and developed so much during this year of remote competition, and we look forward to taking what we’ve learned and incorporating it in the future.”
The VEX World Championship is taking place online May 17-29. To register for the event or learn more, visit RoboticsEducation.org.