Twenty-four teams of high school, junior high and college students gathered from all over the state and Idaho in the USU Eastern Student Center to vie for a chance to win the “Last Chance” challenge of the Vex Robotics Competition. Top teams would be able to move on to the world competition in Anaheim, Cali. April 17-20.
Among those competing were four of the top teams in the world. A team from Price was part of the competition in which it competed and hosted for the first time. The team finished 12th overall. Its coach, James Powell, said that was a vast improvement over their first attempts.
The goal of the competition was to take the materials provided in a kit, build a robot that could pick up small sandbags and deposit them in a basket, and then program it to do so.
Each team had to undergo an interview by the judges on its process and individual roles on the squad. Team members also went through an individual skills challenge in which they were scored on their robot and the driver’s ability to get as many bags in the basket in a minute.
Finally, teams went head to head in pairs to put bags in baskets and tried to take out the opposing team’s bags.
Robots needed to function autonomously for 15 seconds before a driver took over for the remaining 1:15 seconds.
The Price team consisted of: team captain and main programmer Cameron Jones, builder Tyler Pete, builder Manny Glimidlais, and builder/driver Tristan Peters.  USU’s Elias Perez also assisted the team. Powell and Perez are looking for anyone interested in being part of the team to contact them. Perez can be reached at 435-613-5251. Powell can be contacted at 435-613-5445.