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STEM Robotics and the University of Delaware Society for Women Engineers (SWE) did a workshop for girls interested in STEM.  This event was sponsored by the Cecil County School District as part of their new STEM Initiatives.

Participants built a VEXIQ kit called Mia.  This little rubber band powered robot showcases simple machines (lever, wheel and axle, and pulley).  After construction, the roboteers were able to test Mia out and make improvements by adding rubber bands, changing the wheels, changing the gears in any combination.   An award for best Mia driver was presented at the end of the day for the Mia that went the farthest distance.

The key part of this workshop was the interaction between the participants and the SWE members on how they got into STEM and engineering, what their interests are and what they think their career paths will be.

The 6th annual Elementary Extravaganza is Saturday, March 16, 2024. This year showcases all 9 elementary schools, two evening programs, teams from Rt 9 Library and a charter school all playing in a single event. The 64 teams will make it the largest robotics event in Delmarva of any kind and the second largest robotics event on the Atlantic Seaboard. It caps a season that had 10 events, a new district record, with over 500 matches played. On Saturday we will run 9 concurrent fields and play 352 matches, which will be the most robot matches played in a single day in the US.

Location: Talley Middle School – 1110 Cypress Rd, Wilmington, DE 19810
Doors open at 8:30 AM
First match 9:10 AM
Finals matches start: 2:30 PM
Awards about 3:15 PM

Food and beverages by the Forwood Elementary PTA

Here is the current list of events for VEXIQ Full Throttle

Event Date	Location and Day	Type
1/5/24	Maple Lane – Friday
1/12/24	Carrcroft – Friday
1/19/24	Hanby – Friday
1/20/24	Talley - Saturday	RECF Teams Only
1/25/24	Lombardy – Thursday
1/27/24	Rt 9 Library – Saturday 10AM-2PM
2/2/24	Mt Pleasant – Friday
2/9/24	Harlan – Friday
2/16/24	Claymont – Friday
2/23/24	Lancashire – Friday
2/25/24	Talley - Sunday	RECF Teams only
3/1/24	Forwood – Friday
3/15-16/24	Extravaganza - Talley - Set up Friday - Run Saturday

Friday events are from 5-8PM, Saturday Events are 8:30-3 unless indicated.

Hope to see you there!

The best part of competition robotics is competing! We’ve had a tough time with this, our last few events from last season got canceled, and early events for this season didn’t happen. Lots of teams have been shut down for long periods of time, or just working at home with a friend. So it’s taken a long time to get robots that work. In the last few weeks robots have started to move and score, so we are ready to have events.

Events have now broken down into a few different types
1) Local Skills only — show up, get access to a field for 30 mins and do your 6 skill runs
2) Remote Skills only — meet in a virtual meeting space (Zoom, teams, etc.) the Referee runs the match (3-2-1 go) and the remote team does their run. Scores are calculated and tallied. The advent of phones with decent cameras makes this easier, one can follow the robot, one can give a wide view of the field. Then the camera can go from tower to tower to verify the placement.
3) Remote Head to Head — Teams play on their local field but are in the same meeting as another team to work together.

We are going to try to do some Skills events first (Remote skills on January 30,2021) to see how thing will work out. With a little luck we’ll get three of them in (January, February, March) for this season.

Sorry to report that with the increasing number of reported cases of the Corona Virus in Delmarva, the Harlan Squared Away event for 14 March and the Elementary Extravaganza for 21 March have both been canceled.

You will still get your gift for registering for the event

Thanks to all the teams that made this a great season!

While we mostly post about VEX VRC (metal) and VEXIQ (plastic) robots here, I went to the FIRST Tech Challenge scrimmage at Padua School in Wilmington. (History buffs will know that VEX was the first “table top” robotics with FIRST, and in 2008 there was a direction change, FIRST went one direction, VEX and the RECF started their own thing).

FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) is table top robots, like VEX that play a co-operation game. This years game has them taking “stones” (that look a lot like Lego bricks) and moving them across the field to stack them as high as they can. An you are thinking “easy peasy” but they need to sneak pass the Galactic Empire under 14″ gates to move and place their building materials. Tall towers win, but it’s hard at one block at a time. I thought this was an easy games, let the Rebels grab and shoot blocks across the void, but it turns out that the Empire as sensors to detect that.

FTC has a different part set with a wide variety of motors and sensors. The metal parts are from one company, but the interesting part to me (as software guy) is their “brain” is a smart phone. So you have Java on the phone, and a pretty decent camera for vision. So robots are able to focus in on the stones to move them.

I also like the game, there is 30 seconds of autonomous, lots longer to show off robot talent. The bolder\boulder builds allow for serious construction. A cool twist is that each team can 3D print their own capstone, and place it on there tallest stack for bonus points. It’s a complicated game, with lots of ways to score. Check them out at their next event, the Delaware State Championship on March 14 at Central Middle School in Dover.

15 VEXIQ teams decended down to the banks of the Brandywine to the Hagley Museum on a frozen Delaware morning to play Squared Away. The event was part of Hagley’s STEMtastic weekends, an annual event (started as the Invention Convention) showcasing STEM activities.

Teams played on the third floor of this 1800’s historic building. They also got a chance to do the activities on the second floor. Roboters got a chance to disassemble computers, printers, even a 70’s AM/FM radio similar to what was in my college dorm room. There was also a chance to create a new invention and have a patent “granted”. Rohan, one of the Brandywine Hundred student volunteers, manned the STEM Robotics build table that let future roboteers build their own robots using VEXIQ parts.

Pizza was served thanks to Hagley, STEM Robotics and most importantly Joan B who picked up and delivered 38 pizzas and water for everybody. (Joan and her son are key members of Mt Pleasant High School robotics program.

This is the first event that we are seeing a movement away from the beginning “Clutch” robot. Today’s robots featured
* Mini claws to grab just an edge of a cube
* Front hooks that can lift cubes to the upper platforms
* Wide guides to allow cubes to be herded to the corners

Also there is more cross team strategy happening to create flows on a pretty full game board.

Awards:

Tournament Winners:
Claymont Boeing
Claymont Google

Tournament Finalists:
Brandywine Hundred Library FLEXIQ
Harlan Raven

Awards:
Team Orion for their flip lift arm that could grab cubes from either side of the robot
Brandywine Hundred Library BESJAY for their double threat ball and cube robot

(Thanks to our hosts at Hagley, with special thanks to Leigh Ann Scholtz for all her help coordinating our activities)

Today 15 robots attending this event:

Brandywine Hundred Library BESJAY
Brandywine Hundred Library FLEXIQ
Brandywine Hundred Library LIV
Brandywine Hundred Library Strawberry Pink Horse
Claymont Boeing
Claymont Google
Claymont Lenovo
Hanby Beetles
Hanby Hornet
Harlan Condor
Harlan Falcon
Harlan Phoenix
Harlan Raven
Lombardy Snow Tigers
Team Orion

This seasons inaugural event for Squared Away was held at Maple Lane Elementary School.

Roboteers played 60 qualification matches and moved into the finals round.

Winners were
Team Maple Lane Gears and
Team Claymont Boeing with 37 points in the final match
Finalist
Team Claymont IDEO
Team Claymont Lenovo with 22 points

IDEO had the high average for the event at 14 points.

Awards went to
Maple Lane Orange Grapes – Amaze Award for their teamwork and sportsmanship at the event.
Claymont Boeing – Build Award for their robot that could scoop up balls and also score the green cubes on the raised platform.

There were 15 teams at the Maple Lane event

Carrcroft Tiny Turtles
Carrcroft Komodo Dragons
Carrcroft Dominating Lizards
Carrcroft Slithering Snakes
Carrcroft Bearded Dragons
Claymont Boeing
Claymont Pixar
Claymont Tesla
Claymont Kaloke
Claymont Lenovo
Claymont Samsung
Claymont IDEO
Maple Lane Gears
Maple Lane Orange Grapes
Maple Lane Roboteers

West Nottingham Rams held their first VEX Robotics Competition at West Nottingham Academy on December 14th.

15 teams from all over Delmarva came from as far away as Salisbury MD to run in an early season event.

Qualification Rankings

Rank	Team	Name	Wins	Losses	Ties	WPs	APs	SPs
1	3389C	TEC-Tigers	8	2	0	16	39	90
2	3389D	TEC-Tigers	7	3	0	14	48	78
3	97963T	JC Patriots	7	3	0	14	45	96
4	3389F	Tec-Tigers	7	3	0	14	36	97
5	8903A	MPHS A	7	3	0	14	24	84
6	3389E	Tec-Tigers	6	3	1	13	39	91
7	7135D	Loyola Robotics	5	4	1	11	30	105
8	28724R	WNA Azimuth	5	5	0	10	15	100
9	7135G	Loyola Robotics	4	5	1	9	33	86
10	97963B	JC Patriots	4	5	1	9	30	92
11	3389A	TEC-Tigers	4	6	0	8	30	52
12	3389B	TEC-Tigers	4	6	0	8	27	59
13	7135E	Loyola Robotics	3	7	0	6	18	60
14	28724A	WNA PowerPuff	1	9	0	2	21	54
15	28724X	WNA International Labor	1	9	0	2	12	53

Awards
Excellence Award 3389E Tec-Tigers Wicomico County Robotics Club
Tournament Champions 3389D TEC-Tigers Wicomico County Robotics Club
Tournament Champions 3389F Tec-Tigers Wicomico County Robotics Club
Design Award 3389F Tec-Tigers Wicomico County Robotics Club
Judges Award 7135D Loyola Robotics Loyola Blakefield
Robot Skills Champion 8903A MPHS A Mount Pleasant High School

Mount Pleasant High School held the first Delmarva “Tower Takeover” event.

Thank you to all of the teams that participated. We’d like to take a moment to thank all of the volunteers that helped to make this tournament a success. Thank you to JROTC for supplying 10 cadets to help things run smoothly. They are always ready to help and very organized. Thank you to Springer Middle School for providing volunteers. Thank you to Joan and Jay Cotton. They helped to coordinate the whole tournament with concessions. Thank you to Jason Heller and John Cain for being refs. MPHS couldn’t have done this without all of the help that we received.

Qualification Results

Rank	Team	Name	Wins	Losses	Ties	WPs	APs	SPs
1	1274B	Igneous Robotics	7	1	0	14	24	38
2	6967A	Aluminum Allies	7	1	0	14	18	54
3	3389B	TEC-Tigers	6	2	0	12	24	46
4	90967D	Springer D	6	2	0	12	21	54
5	90967C	Springer C	5	2	1	11	21	51
6	8903A	MPHS A	5	3	0	10	36	33
7	90967B	Springer B	5	3	0	10	27	41
8	3389F	Tec-Tigers	4	3	1	9	24	36
9	65101A	Sanford School	4	4	0	8	21	48
10	62816A	Brandywine	3	4	1	7	27	59
11	90967A	Springer A	3	4	1	7	18	47
12	3389C	TEC-Tigers	2	4	2	6	15	46
13	3389D	TEC-Tigers	2	5	1	5	6	48
14	3389E	Tec-Tigers	2	6	0	4	18	41
15	17258B	Brandywine	2	6	0	4	9	39
16	8903C	MPHS C	1	6	1	3	21	29
17	8903D	MPHS D	1	7	0	2	12	20

Awards

Excellence Award: 3389C TEC-Tigers Wicomico County Robotics Club
Design Award: 3389F Tec-Tigers Wicomico County Robotics Club
Tournament Champions: 1274B Igneous Robotics Igneous Robotics
Tournament Champions: 6967A WatchMojo Caesar Rodney High School
Tournament Finalists: 90967D The Vultures Springer Middle School
Tournament Finalists: 3389C TEC-Tigers Wicomico County Robotics Club