It's VEX 2020! This year the competition was more competitive with 44 incredible teams battling for a spot in the CA State Championships! The Cal Poly Society of Women Engineers, along with San Luis Obispo High School, was proud to host the California Central Coast VEX Robotics Competition on January 17-18, 2020 in the ATL, Bonderson, and Engineering Plaza areas. We welcomed teams to compete in this year's game, "Tower Takeover” where they will compete in alliances to get the highest score by strategically stacking cubes in goal zones and placing cubes in towers.
With each match featuring four robots from four different teams, the randomly paired alliances must compete against the clock and each other to score the most points on a 12-by-12-foot field. In the afternoon, the 32 top teams formed alliances and competed in a single-elimination bracket for the winning title. Ultimately, the Tournament Champions and the judge-awarded Excellence Award recipients received a bid to the CA State Championship!
Tournament Champions - 920D SLO-Botics and 7983W Centennial Cyberhawks W
Excellence Award - 7983W Centennial Cyberhawks W
Additionally, this year was the first year that the event had the “SWE Innovate Award.” This award was presented to a ‘Girl Powered’ team that demonstrated a strong combination of ingenuity and innovation in designing their VEX robot. ‘Girl Powered’ is a pledge with commitments to giving all students equal opportunities and outreaching to a wide range of students in an effort to establish a diverse team culture.
SWE Innovate Award - 45091B Steel Stallions
Cal Poly SWE is dedicated to our local community, and through our partnership with SLO High, we are able to accomplish hosting a large-scale outreach event for our local future engineers to learn more about robotics and STEM. With over 50 Cal Poly Engineering student volunteers and 20 community volunteers acting as competition judges, robot inspectors, referees and more, teams were able to gain an understanding of the College of Engineering through tours with Engineering Ambassadors, Cal Poly Robotics Club, and Cal Poly CubeSat Laboratory. Each year, our organization is further inspired by the creativity, innovation, and excellence accomplished by the high school students competing at the event!
We were astounded by the level of excellence and creativity achieved by the high schoolers. The robots were incredible to watch! We wish the best of luck to those who moved on to the CA State Championships and are looking forward to the 2020-2021 VEX competition season.