Ola Middle School VEX Robotics Team 5203G wrapped up their showing at the 2021 VRC Middle School Live Remote World Championships held May 17-22, 2021. The team qualified for the international event after winning the Georgia Middle School VRC VEX State Championship Excellence and Skills Awards. They secured two more pieces of hardware during the World Championship event by winning the Innovate Award and a Division Finalist Trophy.

The 2021 VEX World Championships took on a different look than previous years as the event was conducted using a remote system developed by the Robotics Education & Competition (REC) Foundation. The REC Foundation knew that COVID would impact teams’ ability to travel and compete, so they did what they expect their student competitors to do – they engineered a solution to a problem. This new Live Remote Tournament system allowed teams from all over the world to experience the excitement and competitiveness that usually comes from being in an arena with 20,000 other robotics enthusiasts.”

The Ola Middle School team, using the LRT system, competed with and against 160 of the best middle school VRC teams from across the globe. The event was truly an international one, including teams from Australia, Canada, China, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This action-packed event required middle school students to execute the 2020-2021 VEX Robotics Competition game, Change Up.

As Division Finalist Award recipients, the team showed they had what it takes to compete with the best on the field. This designation put them among the top 16 middle school teams in the World Championships, based on robot performance. The Innovate Award recognized the team’s abilities off the field as it is presented to teams who demonstrate ingenious and innovative problem solving in a well-documented Engineering Notebook. Team 5203G’s recognition as an Innovate Award winner puts them in the top 5% of teams in the judged categories. Team mentor and Ola High School Engineering teacher, Christie Schmitt, said, “Winning the Innovate Award at the World Championships is a huge deal. The documentation and thought that goes into these robots is quite impressive and this year’s team has over 175 pages of documented design work that helped propel them to the top.”

Ola Middle School’s 5203G VEX VRC Competition team is comprised of team members Carson Schmitt, Conner Middlebrooks, Dustin Pouliot, Lincoln Durden, and Kenneth Clay. All of the students are current 8th graders and most of the team has competed together for the last several years as a VEX IQ team. “This was our first year moving up to the VRC platform,” said team driver Conner Middlebrooks. “We learned a lot and saw a great deal of success as a VEX IQ team and we wanted to test ourselves before moving to the high school. We dreamed of doing this well, but didn’t think it would come during our first year in VRC.”

A lot of work and practice helped make that dream a reality. Team 5203G started working on their winning robot in May of last year, meeting online via Zoom to plan and research. Once the team could safely meet in-person, they worked at nights and on weekends for 15-20 hours per week building, perfecting, and practicing. Through the process, students learn about engineering design, electronics, programming, mechanical systems, 3D CAD, and materials fabrication. “VEX students display their technology and engineering knowledge, expand their communication and teamwork skills, and show us how enjoyable hands-on learning can be through robotics,” said Dan Mantz, CEO of the REC Foundation.

Team captain, Carson Schmitt, said he was proud of the team’s perseverance and accomplishments. “Our main goal during matches was to clear the field and score all the game objects. We also put a lot of effort into understanding game strategy and communicating with our partners. Those things really paid off, in the end.” Schmitt continued by praising the whole team, “Everyone focused on their job and executed perfectly. Conner drove well through the whole tournament and was clutch during the elimination bracket, Kenneth and Lincoln provided valuable scouting data so we knew what our partners and opponents were going to do, and Dustin did a great job at the LRT computer console helping us to communicate with teams and the event organizers.”

Team 5203G now has their sights set on next year as the new VRC game was released at the end of the World Championships on Saturday. “I am excited to have this group move up to Ola High School and continue their history of success,” said Christie Schmitt, who runs the high school robotics program. “Our high school team actually started the VEX IQ robotics program at Ola Elementary as an outreach program to encourage students to dive into STEM and robotics. I’ve known most of these kids since they were in 2nd or 3rd grade and we know exciting things are in store for the future.”