VEXWorlds

VEXWorlds was amazing! They called it "The Olympics of Robotics" at the opening ceremony, and they weren't kidding - over 30 countries sent their best teams to compete in the middle school, high school, and college competitions, and we took up the entire Kentucky Expo center.

They divided the middle school teams into two 80-team divisions, Our division - Spirit - was really tough, with most of the Chinese teams competing in it. We had heard about the Chinese teams after Nationals - they had just dominated everything with their big, defensive robots, and they were definitely ready to do the same thing at Worlds.

As you can see from our photos, we had sequined fedora hats and pink ties with LED lights to wear, which turned out to be really useful for our parents to find us in the big event hall when it was dark. We also spent a lot of time setting up our booth with things like the lego model of our robot that Joe built, a projector showing the latest movie we made about our robot, the computer with the CAD design Kosei had created, our presentation board that Andrew and Caleb did, the sponsor banner, and a big map with flags from all the countries attached to pins for visitors to put where they were from.


The random selection of alliances and opponents didn't really go in our favor. Of the ten matches we were scheduled in, all but three of them paired us with teams ranked lower than 50th, and way too many of them opposed teams in the top 20. We also had some bad luck against the Chinese robots, which stood at the fence and blocked whatever we tried to throw. They knocked our robot over twice, and one time they dropped a cube under our base so we couldn't get back up. Those matches weren't fun at all, though we definitely adjusted our game strategy because of it.

The best part of the first day was our interview with the two judges from our division. They spent about twenty minutes talking to us at our booth about everything - Tyler and Joe talked a lot about our design and build process, Caleb talked about the engineering notebook that he was in charge of, the scientific method Andrew used on our display board, and the budget he kept, Kosei's CAD design, the coding for all the autonomous programs that Connor designed, and even our world map, and the fundraising we did to get us to Kentucky. It was a pretty great interview, and all of us had something to say about our own jobs on the team, and about things the other guys did.

The next day we won two of our matches, but overall we didn't do as well as we wanted to. Then the judges came back and asked some specific questions about our coding, and about an hour later, two different judges came over to talk about the autonomous programming. Connor was able to show them all the different programs he'd designed, and those two guys spent about twenty minutes with us talking about code.

On the final day of competition we had a problem with our base that had to be fixed, and we managed to win another match, but overall it wasn't enough to get us a spot in the quarter finals. We had just finished taking photos with the two Peninsula High School teams and raced back to watch the finals when the judges started giving out their awards, We were stunned when they called "7035M" up to receive the Think Award for exceptional programming accomplishments!

The VEXWorlds awards are way bigger than anything we got in regular competitions, and our Think Award is going to look good in Mr. Nimick's STEM room. Getting that award was definitely a highlight of the whole tournament!

Interestingly, the three-team alliance that won the middle school VEXWorlds championship was made of two Chinese teams and one from Singapore that we had gone up against (and lost to) during our qualifying matches. The competition was fierce, and we learned as much from the teams who beat us, as from our wins. The grand finale of the whole tournament was a reveal of the new VEX EDR game for next year, and we've been talking about what kind of robot to build, and how to code it since we left Kentucky.

We never could have accomplished everything we did this year without our teacher/mentor/coach, Mr. Nimick, and we didn't tell him that we submitted his name for consideration for Robotics Teacher of the Year to the VEXWorlds committee with this letter:

            Imagine waking up every morning and having to take a 30 minute commute to work. Next you arrive at 7:30 and have to teach 6 different classes, to 6th graders who can’t sit still for more than 20 minutes. Next you have to educate 7th graders who can’t seem to follow the directions on the page, and 8th graders who ask questions, where the answer to them is constantly changing due to new advances in technology. After that long day of work you have to mentor 28 kids on four separate teams and guide them on the correct path to create complex machines.

            Mr. Nimick doesn’t have to imagine this, because this is his everyday life. He sacrifices so much of his time to be with us. He guide us on our way by providing resources and helping us solve problem on our own by using the VEX forum and encouraging use to test out prototypes and to find the best possible solution. He never gives us the answer to our problems, but rather he give us the necessary steps so that we are able to find the answer on our own and learn how to problem-solve; then every time we have a problem we don’t need an adult's help. Instead we use our resources such as the internet to see if anyone else is having that problem, along with the necessary steps to solve the problem. He gives up  hours that he could be spending with his family in order to make sure that we have enough time to construct, test, and practice to be competitive in tournaments. He often extends past his usual five and a half hours per week, and opens up the classroom for up to 7 hours on the weekend without pay to ensure that we are as prepared as possible for our competitions. Mr. Nimick gave up even more time to organize and run a VEX tournament that was rated one of the most well run tournaments in Southern California.

            He has also given up even more Saturdays to take us to competitions, and even if we don't do well in them he always makes sure that we learn valuable lessons from them so that we can learn from our mistakes and be even more prepared for our next competition. He makes sure that everything​ thing we do is logical and thought through. He encourages us to use the design process as much as possible, and to document our work about our redesign, our progress, and the aftermath of a competition. Mr. Nimick has given countless hours towards the VEX robotics program, from weekend to late nights. He has coached 4 years in a row and never even considered stopping because he is dedicated to the success and innovation of the next generation, and he wants to make sure that he is able to help us achieve greatness, and lead innovation in the future.

Thanks to Mr. Nimick for three years of robotics, and for being such a generous and awesome mentor and teacher. We worked hard to get to the VEXWorld Championships, but we couldn't have done it without him, or the support of our parents, or the very generous donations from our friends, family, and community.

Going to VEXWorlds was an amazing experience that will stay with all of us for a very long time.

We're Leaving for Louisville!

Thank you so much to everyone who has supported our efforts to get all six of us to the VEX World Championships! Your very generous donations and words of encouragement have made a huge difference! We're leaving for Louisville, Kentucky today, and we'll be spending tomorrow at the Expo Center, setting up, checking in, and doing last minute checks on our robot.

By the way, the robot's name is Dozer, and we just finished a new video to show everyone what it can do. Here's the link, and we'll send more updates as we have them: https://youtu.be/JvJvWioxBqI

Thank you again, and we'll send more from Worlds!
Team 7035M

We are Team 7035M, a VEX Robotics team from Miraleste Intermediate School. We're all 8th graders, and most of us have been doing robotics here for all three years.

This year our team achieved something that no other robotics team in our school district has ever done - we won the 2017 California State VEX Robotics Championship. That win qualified us to compete in the 2017 World VEX Robotics Championship tournament - something only the top 1% of middle school VEX teams in the world get to do.

The 2016-17 Vex Robotics season was our most successful one ever. In total, we earned six awards including two judges awards, one robot skills champion, one design award, and two tournament champions awards. All that was accomplished by a team of six diverse teenagers who specialize in different things - Joe is the main Builder and drives the robot's lift, Tyler is the Project Manager and he drives the base of the robot, Connor is the Programmer and has developed a 2,000 line code for us, Kosei works on CAD designs and has completed a computer model of our whole robot, Caleb manages our engineering notebook in order to make sure every change is properly documented. And Andrew is in charge of our presentations and our poster board.

The 2017 World VEX Robotics Championship tournament takes place in Louisville, Kentucky on April 19-22, 2017. We have less than a month to get ourselves and our robot ready to compete against more than 130 of the best middle school robotics teams in the world, and we're equal parts excited, challenged, daunted, scared, and inspired.

One of the daunting things about going to Kentucky is figuring out how to pay for all six of us to fly there from Los Angeles (and there's no easy way to get to Louisville - we looked!), and how to pay for our housing while we're gone for five days. We have some support from the Peninsula Education Foundation and our school's Booster Club, but even with their help, it doesn't cover everything we'll need to compete at the World Championships. Our team prides itself on being able to do a lot with very little, but we need to start with something and that something is your help. We are fundraising to pay for this trip and we've come up with a plan to give something back for your generosity.

Here's the plan: For every $20 donation we will print your name on our SPONSOR BANNER, which will hang in our booth at the World Championships. It could be your name, your business name, your kid's name, or your dog's name - whatever you choose (within reason). But every $20 donation will add a name to our banner.

Each $150 donor will get their name, or their business name added to the banner AND to our promotional video. This will be viewed at the World Championships, seen by the judges, and posted to our YouTube channel. 

Each $300 donor will get their name or business name added to the banner AND to the back of our competition t-shirts. You'll also get your very own MIST Robotics t-shirt as a thank you gift.

Each $1000 donor will get their name on a t-shirt, get a shirt, and have their 4 ft. banner displayed in our booth at the World Championships.

And if you donate $2500 to our team, you will get to name our robot!

If you prefer to donate via credit card or paypal, click the link below. If you need a 501(c)(3) number for a tax exemption or employer matching fund, send us an e-mail and we'll give you information about where to send a check.

We will also be updating this blog page with photos and stories from our experiences at the World Championships, so please sign up for notifications, or check back often to see what we're up to.

Anything you can do to share this with people you know is a great help, and we are very grateful for all assistance you can provide to our team and program!

We feel extremely lucky to be able to do what we do. Thank you so much for all your support - we can't wait to share our experiences with you!