VEX Robotics at Cranleigh

The Cranleigh Robotics teams were involved in back to back weekends of action packed competition recently with team 18650D making their VEX Robotics debut at the Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys Autumn Regional. The team made a strong start with their impressive “all-rounder” robot that is able to move in all directions, shoot discs and turn rollers. They were battling it out for the top three qualification spots all morning, for large parts topping the leader board too! When it came to alliance selection, the team were ranked 3rd and faced a challenging route to the final. Thanks to some slick programming and competitive driving the team made it all the way to the final in their first ever competition which was a fantastic result. They narrowly lost out in the final match of the day by one score, finishing very proud runners up!

The following weekend it was Cranleigh’s turn to host and the Design Engineering department was transformed into a competition area with 12 visiting teams all battling out to be crowned champions. This time both of our teams were involved with 18650E making their debut on home tiles! Facing a new set of opponents, the standard was incredibly high, matches were tense and close scoring with so many different designs proving successful in this years’ game “Spin Up”. After the qualification matches were complete both Cranleigh teams were positioned 7th and 8th in the rankings, each selecting a different alliance partner to join them in the knockouts. 18650E faced a tough test against one of the top seeds in their quarter final match and unfortunately their journey through the competition went no further. 18650D managed to knock out their higher ranked opponents in their quarter final match but were unfortunately stopped in their semi-final against the eventual tournament champions. However, special mention must go to team 18650D who managed to set the second highest driver skills score of the season so far in the Skills Competition, with the team currently sitting 5th overall in the National Rankings. A huge well done to both teams who started their seasons fantastically well, on to the next competition!