Three East County schools headed to Vex Robotics World Championship

When many people think of a robot, a specific image pops into their heads. 

“Everybody kind of thinks of a robot as being like that tall, big square head kind of thing,” said Kimberly Brown, the technology teacher and TSA advisor at Dr. Mona Jain Middle School. 

At the Vex Robotics World Championship, students from all over the world create robots to complete a specific task. The competition’s game changes every year and they unveil the game for the next year at the end of the competition. They are told how the game works, and given a “hero bot” which is an example that they can figure out how to expand on to complete the task of the game. 

The game for this year is titled “Rapid Relay” which is played on a 6-foot by-8-foot field. One side has a load zone where team members introduce a ball into the field, and the other side is the pickup zone, where targets are present. The robots work to pick up and launch balls through the targets in the wall, adding up points each time they make it. 

Three schools from East County have qualified for the competition — Gilbert W. McNeal Elementary School, Carlos E. Haile Middle School and Dr. Mona Jain Middle School. 

Representing McNeal Elementary School is a team called “Blue Lightning” made up of three fifth grade students: Trenton Horne, Parker Poplaski, and Matthew Jackson, and one fourth grade student in Samantha Casanueva.

Their robot’s name is Blue Lightning, just like their team name. The team is coached by Vyacheslav Kolomiychenko, a STEM teacher at McNeal and Jenn Poplaski, a volunteer coach and mother of team member Parker Poplaski. 

Representing Carlos E. Haile Middle School are seventh grade students Sofia Laubacker, Amelia Cendere, Connor Willats, Joshua Parker and Cooper Gallegos. Their team name is CHARLIE, and they are coached by Anthony Vasile, their robotics and coding teacher.

Representing Mona Jain Middle will be eighth grade students Carl Santos and Jaxon Carver along with sixth grader Charles Santos. The team is called “Mechanical Bull Paradigm.” They named their robot Prominence. 

Photo by Madison Bierl

Brown said an ideal team consists of four to five students, but they found their team of three works well. She said that in this case it is about quality and not quantity.

“There's so many elements that go into it, so many moving parts all the time,” Brown said. 

Carl and Charles Santos are brothers and Carl showed his appreciation for Charles and what he does for the team.

“Charles controls the flow of the match. He controls how fast things get put in,” Carl Santos said. “He also controls how fast we have to move in order to get the highest possible score.”

Before the competition, teams submit notebooks remotely, which tells and shows their design process and how they built their robots. They then have a team interview showcasing their bot and their code.

“I think their thought process went a step above,” Brown said. “You could definitely tell the maturity level and their thought process.”

Between competitions, many teams make improvements to their robots or bring a completely different one. Both the Mechanical Bull Paradigm and Blue Lightning teams are bringing different robots.

Charles Santos said that their two robots look very similar, but the one they will bring to Worlds has a different power transfer system. It is lighter weight which means the robot can accelerate much faster than the one they competed with previously. 

There are three main parts of the competition at Worlds — Skills, Teamwork and Autonomous matches. Each part is given a 60-second time frame.

In the Driving Skills Challenge Match, the teams drive their robots to get as many points as possible. In the Teamwork Challenge Match, teams from different schools or even different countries form alliances. Each team consists of two drivers, one robot and one loader. 

“Even though not everybody speaks English, they were still able to communicate through the robots,” said Jenn Poplaski.

The third challenge is the Autonomous Coding Skills Challenge and this time there are no drivers allowed. 

“They push a button and off it goes by itself,” Brown said. “That's all coded.”

Brown said that respect is a huge factor during every competition.

“Our kids could have the best robot going the fastest and everything. If we were to say something mean about another team, we're disqualified,” Brown said. 

Brown said that the kids communicate with other Vex competitors all year, through online platforms such as YouTube and Discord. Their YouTube channel is called Paradigm Robotics.

“They’re competing against each other, but yet they collaborate,” Brown said.

Carl Santos said that they collaborated with people around the world to come up with the best design solution, and decided on a back roller robot. 

“There's a roller in the back that pushes balls into the bottom goals,” Carl Santos said. “In addition, we also have a catapult that shoots them up into the high goals.”

Brown said that the sixth graders look up to the eighth graders for guidance and for mentorship. Their influence doesn’t stop there, as they have also influenced the elementary students at McNeal. Jenn Poplaski said that Carol Santos has provided her son Parker with tips and tricks to help them succeed.

“He didn't need to go out of his way to talk with Parker and show Parker different things from the game and the fields and stuff like that, but he did,” Jenn Poplaski said. “He's just an amazing kid.”

McNeal Elementary, Haile Middle and Dr. Mona Jain Middle will compete at the Vex Robotics World Championship in Dallas, Texas from May 12-14. 

“I've always stayed kind of hands off. I'll carry the luggage and I'll take them to any competition,” Brown said. “I'll be their biggest cheerleader, but it really is their project.”