On December 3, the Huntley High School’s Engineering Club participated in the Wildstang VEX Robotics Tournament at Rolling Meadows High School.
A total of 38 engineering teams from the northern Illinois area competed in the robotics tournament. Three teams from Huntley High School, Team158C, A, and B, placed 13th, 15th, and 26th respectively.
The 38 teams were asked to create and build a fully functional robot from scratch. Participants needed to be able to both control the robot remotely and have the robot perform on its own autonomously.
For teams to obtain points during the competition, their robot needed to be able to pick up an assorted group of objects, ranging from cubes to 3-dimensional stars, and place them in certain areas in a 12 ft x 12 ft foam arena.
VEX Robotics hosts competitions and tournaments across the nation and hopes that these friendly contests will solve a future problem in the engineering discipline.
“[We believe] there are not enough high school graduates choosing technology-related disciplines in college,” VEX Robotics said.
They aim to inspire a new generation of engineers to not only work in robotics, but to also study nuclear engineering and medical engineering.
VEX Robotics also believes that students will learn valuable skills that can be used in their future endeavors.
“[Students] will cultivate life skills such as planning, brainstorming, collaboration, teamwork, and leadership as well as research and technical skills,” VEX Robotics said.
After the the tournament, engineering teacher Amanda Henk congratulated the Huntley groups.
“I proud of all our teams,” Henk said. “Two teams made it to the quarterfinals. I would say that is a successful today.”
This was the second tournament for the engineering club since its creation in 2013. The first tournament was at Illinois State University last month.
The engineering club meets Mondays after school in room W1311, near the Freshmen Academy Office. Currently, there are close to 40 students involved in the club and new members are always welcome.