Monomoy High School students will showcase their engineering skills on Saturday as they compete alongside 24 teams from Massachusetts in a VEX Robotics Competition. The event will be hosted at Monomoy High School from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
This year’s game, called High Stakes, challenges students to design robots that can climb a three-level tower to score the most points.
The Robotics Education and Competition Foundation hosts VEX Robotics contests year-round, inspiring middle and high school students to hone their technological and strategic talent through a competitive game involving robots they build themselves.
Students compete for a chance to qualify for state or regional competitions, where they can ultimately win a VEX Excellence Award.
Larry Souza, Monomoy High School’s engineering technology teacher and robotics team coach, said that students begin working on their robots as soon as the school year starts. “In our school we don’t have a per se robotics class. Most of the work is done at their own time, after school or before school,” he said.
Souza describes the robots as looking very much like an Erector set. Made from aluminum or steel sheet metal, the robot is constructed into bent channels and has square holes throughout its frame. The students assemble the pieces themselves before moving on to find the right components—such as tank treads and pneumatics—to ensure the robot scores well during mandatory inspection.
“The best part is, they are doing it all themselves and using critical thinking and coming up with solutions,” Souza said.
In this competition, not all the students are enrolled for computer science or engineering. The students work in teams that are randomly selected, meaning a student from School A could team up with a student from School B to compete against their peers.
“The camaraderie and cooperation are much different than in other sports. I think it’s going to be a great competition and should be very exciting,” Souza said.
Monomoy High School’s Robotics competition is open for the public, and the winner will be announced at 4:30 p.m.