The Woodlan Elementary Robotics team competed in their second Vex IQ Robotics competition on Saturday, February 12 at Madison-Grant Jr./ Sr. High School. The team had traveled to Portland on January 22, for their initial competition, to come away in fifth place. After two weeks of practice and fine tuning, the Woodlan Warrior Bots took on 19 other teams from the northern Indiana area and came away victorious. The Warrior Bots were awarded the “VEX IQ Challenge Teamwork Champions Award”, which includes a bid to the Indiana State VEX Robotics Championship on Mar. 12 at Lucas Oil Stadium. This was only their second ever robotics competition and to come away in first place is an accomplishment they were not expecting, but are extremely proud of.
The students started working at the beginning of October to design and build a robot from scratch with a set number of resources. Once done, the students had to learn to navigate an obstacle course comprised of various skills and achievements that have a set point values. The teams compete with assigned schools to achieve the highest point total. After eight rounds of driving, students qualify for the championship round. Woodlan went into the finals at second and drove with the Justice Giants from Marion ,Indiana to clench the first place honor.
