Tubber, Texas and robotics!

Students from St Manchan's NS in Tubber enjoyed the trip of a lifetime to Dallas, Texas, recently to compete in the VEX Robotics Championship final.

After winning the All-Ireland final in two events held in Cork last February the students spent months working hard, perfecting their skills and putting in countless hours of practice.

VEX Robotics involves students building a robot that could interact with a series of complex machines that dispense disks that could then be manoeuvred into a goal to score points.

To begin with, the children build the arena that the game is played on. The children then design, build and adapt their robot to score points in the game. Once the robot is built the children create code so that the robot will drive autonomously and they then practice driving the robot with a control. Finally, the children create an engineering notebook and posters documenting each aspect of their journey from start to finish.

Students from St Manchan's NS outlined their experiences of the trip

Caoimhe Molloy said: “Our teacher told us that we had actually qualified for the World VEX Robotics Championships in Texas. Questions and decisions filled the following weeks and I thought back to that November's evening and the unexpected roller-coaster that was ahead of me. I remain truly delighted that I was chosen for this year's VEX Robotics school team.”

Denis Murray added: “The journey to Dallas was long, but it was worth it. As soon as we arrived we could feel the excitement in the air. In the hours that followed we just got a feel for the place taking a few walks around. One of the nicest parts of the trip was meeting an Irish couple who are now living in Dallas. They were so thoughtful, treating us to pizza, sweets and drinks shortly after we arrived at the hotel. It brought to mind, too, the kindness shown by neighbours, teachers, friends and family in advance of the trip, how their support and funding helped to make this dream a reality.”

“We had two days of exploration before the competition was actually starting so we had to make the best of it. We had all been googling Dallas’ best places to visit so we had an idea of where we wanted to go. The shopping mall was high on the list and a visit to a cattle show was also on the list of must see places. I liked that we met real cowboys. We took a photo with one of them, they were very friendly. We even met a real sheriff,” said Evan Cody.

Cormac Murray spoke about entering the VEX competition and preparing the robot for inspection. “Going in we had to show our lanyard to the guy at the entrance door. When we got in, me, Aodhán and Luke had to bring the robot for inspection to make sure that it wasn’t too big and that we were using the proper VEX materials and parts. We all went to find our pit with our team number above it.”

Lalya Kelly said that the atmosphere in the the Kay Bailey Convention Centre was “electric” with teams from all over the world coming together to compete in the event. “We had to set up our pit and decorate it. Loads of people were giving out free stuff. Then the ceremony of nations started. When Ireland was called we walked out on to the stage and waved our flags. There was no competition the first day so we just practised.”

Aoife Howlin stated: “We were nervous as we entered our first challenge but as soon as we started performing all of those nerves melted away. We gave it our all, pouring our hearts and souls into every move, every piece of code and all our team work.

“We had to wake up really early on Wednesday as we were the first game of the day and had to be there early to practise and strategise with the other team. Our first two games didn’t go to well putting us 72nd out of 74. However, that didn’t stop us as we managed to do much better in our other games scoring over 100 every time and that put us 54th by the end of the day.”

Ava Finlay added that the second day of the competition brought more pressure and competition because of the upcoming matches. “We got prepared for our first match after a few hours by finding the team we were going to play with and talk about what our strategy will be. We did this for all our games. We started our round of games off with two mishaps, but we progressively got better to defeat our last high score by getting 213.”

“On the final day of the competition we came 41st in our division which we were so happy about. Then some of us went to the closing ceremony and the finals which was very good. The teams that won it were from China and Canada.Afterwards we went to see where JFK was assassinated which was very cool. We then went to the pool in our hotel,” said Aodhán Cullen.

“On Thursday evening Aodhán and I played our last match and got 157 points which was the team's second best score. After the very cool light show and the finals we went back to the hotel. We were up till late playing baseball with a pillow as a bat and a foam ball as a baseball in the hotel lobby,” Luke Daly concluded of the memorable trip.