VIDEO | Delaware schools punch tickets to world robotics competition | The Latest from WDEL News

The Erector sets of yesteryear are blown away with what some local middle and high school students are doing in and around Delaware.

The Vex Robotics Delmarva regional competition was hosted upstairs at the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Center on Delaware State University’s campus in Dover Saturday, March 9, 2019.

Nearby Dover Air Force Base helped with the competition by bringing over an explosive ordinance robot for the students to drive as well as lending 21 judges and referees to the competition.

Teams from Salisbury, Maryland up to Brandywine Hundred stretched their tech muscles with robots that flipped and lifted caps, shot balls, and could maneuver onto three raised platforms in the middle of the competition field.

Judges of the competition graded the teams in interviews, reviewed their design journals, and took points into consideration for the day’s top honors.

At the high school level competition, a well-sponsored pair of teams from Wicomico County, Maryland, dominated the head-to-head tournament to collect hardware and earn an invitation to the world competition in Louisville, Kentucky in April.

With impressive interviews, designs and a runner-up finish in the tournament along side a team from West Nottingham Academy in Colora, Maryland, the lone crew from Cape Henlopen High School earned the Excellence Award and got the nod for a trip to Louisville.

“It’s been a really hard competition with some really tough competitors,” said Cape senior Zach Babbie. “A lot of the bots came extremely prepared. Our bot is incapable of shooting, currently, but lifts really well and a lot of these teams were strong and able to compete with that.”

Babie noted that within three weeks of getting the competition materials, he was proud of his trio of future engineers.

John Schlater and Yuxin He, fellow Cape seniors, weren’t 100 percent certain they’d come out of the competition with the ticket to the world competition, but knew they’d put the work in to deserve it.

“We just put a lot of hours into this robot, especially within these last couple of weeks,” Schlater said. “Yuxin has especially been putting in countless hours and staying up many nights to do this. I don’t think we could have done this without the group effort.”

Yuxin He, in tears of joy, added that the effort didn’t stop when the robot entered the building.

“We never gave up,” she said. “No matter what, we never gave up, and we were fighting to the last minute.”

The middle school competition had a heavy Wilmington-area presence with six of the eight possible awards being brought in by John Dickinson High School and P.S. duPont, Talley and Springer middle schools.

The Springer F squad, “Mickey Bean,” brought home the Excellence Award and earned the invite to the world competition in Kentucky

Apair of Talley Middle School teams, the “Asian Tigers and Caspian Tigers,” made their way into the single-elimination tournament bracket and took home the head-to-head championship.

Aaron Smith teaches seventh grade technology and helped coach the team that finished in first place.

“Our teams worked really hard this year building their robots. They made improvements from the last competition we were in,” said Smith. “We learned a lot, made improvements and modifications. They guys and girls worked really hard to win a championship.”

Greg Reynolds credits the success of the program with backing that comes from the Brandywine School District as well as the drive of the student competitors.

“There’s tons of collaboration and working together, especially here at the competition,” said Reynolds. “We get a lot for technology from the district. Michelle Kutch is leading the charge in Vex Robotics. This is my third year doing this, and it is a constant support from the district. They give us the time, the resources, and it’s always a big leg up for the kids.”

Smith added that the Brandywine School District doesn’t just look at these competitions as fun field trips to Dover and elsewhere, as just down Naamans Road, the Concord STEM program was recently named a finalist in a national STEM competition sponsored by Samsung.

“The district takes them very seriously,” he added. “We like to see many students go into the field after they graduate. This is one of those things that helps attract students and gets them interested in STEM and into robotics.”