I am proud and excited to announce that in our 2nd ever VEX robotics competition in our very first semester of having a robotics program here at Myer we can already call ourselves Tournament Champions!
In an exciting day of competition one of our teams rose to the top with hard work, collaboration, strategy and execution. With a 3-3 record after preliminary matches and sitting in 17th place (out of 50 teams) the team consisting of Ben McLean, Jakob DeGazio, Christian Vattovaz and Mitchell Davies thought they were going home but thanks to the #2 rated Disco Bot team from Brampton who recognized the strengths of our team's robot and team they selected Myer as one of there alliance partners for the finals.
They dominated the quarter finals winning 2-0 in a best of three match and then repeated that in the semis against very strong teams from across southern Ontario. The championship final was intense. We dominated the first match to go up 1-0 but then lost the 2nd match due to a disqualification when the Disco Bot team blocked the opposing team in a restricted area of the competition field. The 3rd and final match was a nail bitter with both sides battling back and forth. When the clock ran out it was too close to call. As we awaited the judges to score the match that 3 minutes felt like an hour. Then it happened. The results were posted on the big screen and the blue alliance came out on top 255-241.
This differential equaled 2-4 scoring balls in the competition. The winning teams erupted and the excitement displayed by our students was second to none. A monumental achievement as Myer was the David to the likes of the Sir Winston, Eden and Ridley Goliath's.
This performance earned our team a spot in the 2016 Ontario Provincial VEX championships which will be held in St. Catharines on March 5th. This event will send the top teams to the World Championships!
Special thanks must go out to our community sponsors:
Our major sponsor Bickles Hardware (Niagara Falls) donated almost $3,000 to our robotics program and outfitted our lab with RobotC programming software, purchased our competiton field, competition field controller and VEX games pieces so our class and teams could design, fabricate and practice for the competition season.
Tool Needs Inc. (Vineland) and R&Y Tool and Tie (Welland) both donated $500 to our program. These resources went towards new equipment which helped us become more competitive in our 2nd competition.
Without the support of these sponsors we would not have the resources and equipment necessary to be competitive.
Thank you to our administration team for supporting our new Computer Engineering/Robotics program here at Myer.
Thanks to Roy Smith our DSBN Tech consultant who gave or program a boost with some new and used VEX equipment from the board.
Thanks to Richard Liske and his students for their hard work designing our team logos and other graphics contributions.
Thanks to Luke Collison for putting up with our constant interuptions in his shop cutting components for our robots during his 5th period class.
Thanks to Trisha, Linda and Sue in the office for taking care of cheques, purchase orders, deliveries, etc.
We now must get ready for the Provincial Championships!