Fall Robotics

The VEX IQ robotics season is in full swing.  We have already been to three competitions.  This year's game is called "ringmaster" and the students have to design robots that can pick up different colored rings and put them on poles.  Olivia and Owen's school has four competition robots this year, and both kids are on a team.

Olivia is on team A.  The A robot has finished well in every competition and has made it to the finals twice.  Olivia continues to be really interested in robotics.  At this point, she says that she wants to be an engineer when she grows up, and I think that her involvement on the robotics team has had a lot to do with this.

Owen was excited to learn that he had been selected for a robotics team this year.  He is with robot C, and his team has also done well- they even made it to the finals at the last competition.  This is Owen's first year working with the robots (whereas it is Olivia's third), so he's still finding his footing a bit.  He loves it, though.  He is really glad that he no longer has to go to the competitions and just watch.

 We continue to have the only VEX IQ robotics team south of the Atlanta area, so we have to travel four-five hours for every competition.  It's not so bad, though.  The sponsors always take the kids to a pizza place that has an arcade for lunch, and the kids love that.  Another bonus is that sometimes we can squeeze in a visit with Cassie, Nick, and the nephews.  Cassie even brought the boys to one of the competitions.  Olivia and Owen loved showing off their cousins to their friends.  We have at least one more competition in February, and then we'll cross our fingers and hope that we get a bid to the state finals.