VEX Robotics

Robotics Competition 2023

On Wednesday 1st February 2023, the children from the Senior Room travelled to the Sacred Heart in Tullamore for the VEX Robotics Competition. The children have spent the last few weeks preparing for the competition. 

This years game was called "Slapshot" and the children have to build a robot that could empty discs from a number of dispensers and then try to get as many of the orange discs across the barrier to the other side of the arena. The children spent some time building two robots - the prototype for the game which could shoot discs and reach over the barrier with its arm. However, we found that this robot was not great and wouldn't work for us. We then built a second robot that could tip the dispensers and from there decided that pushing the discs across the barrier would be great. 

For the coding part of the competition it was great to see the children working together to code the robot to play the game. They developed their problem solving skills and mathematical skills so much. They had so many ideas that at one point I thought some of the children would fall out over it! 

During the competition there were three parts to the competition:
(1) The teamwork challenges where our team played the game with another school to score as high as possible. 
(2) The coding part where we coded the robot to play the game
(3) Driver skills where we played the full game on our own. 
The children played so well in all areas of the competition. 

It was such an enjoyable day for everyone and the children performed so well and represented the school so well. I can't say how proud we are of each and everyone of you. We would like to say a big thank you to Ray Bell from Offaly County Council for organising the day, Dean and David Hodge for all their support throughout the competition and to the Sacred Heart for hosting the competition. 
We are already looking forward to what next years competition will be!