Skip to main content

College News

Students compete in Northeast robotics competition

Students compete in Northeast robotics competition

NORFOLK, NE – College and high school students tested their robotics prowess recently at Northeast Community College during a VEX Robotics competition in the Student Center on the Norfolk campus.

Forty-five students on seven area high school teams from Battle Creek, O’Neill and Pierce, as well as teams from Northeast and Western Nebraska Community College competed with their robots that have been built using standard kit of parts.

Richard Chrisman, information technology instructor at Northeast, said this year’s competition featured a game called “In the Zone.”

“In this game, competitors attempt to stack cones on stationary and mobile goals. The mobile goals are moved into their alliance’s designated zones. High school teams’ work in alliances of two teams while college teams work in a single team alliance,” he said.

Chrisman said both divisions have two alliances competing on the field in a given match.

“Each match in the game has an autonomous segment in which the robot has been programmed to complete pre-determined tasks, followed by a driver control segment in which the students use a remote control to drive their robot to accomplish their goals.”

The game was played with each team being matched in random alliances. Each team competed in five matches in the qualifying round to determine seeding for the elimination round (playoffs).

In the college competition, teams from Northeast claimed the top three prizes. The “Geeks” (Calvin Craig, Norfolk, and Abdirahman Jama, South Sioux City) placed, first while “KylEd” (Kyle Lentz, Hartington, and Eduardo Guzman, Schuyler) finished second, and “Flo with the Code” (Cody Greenwood, North Bend) was third.

In the high school competition, team “Bob Ross” (Bill Arkfeld, Chase Bowers, Sam Dederman, Lucas Hrabanek, Noah Kaveledge, and Ashton Toupal) from Battle Creek was first. Team “Drew (Parker Anderson, Curtis Eichoff, Andrew Lutt, and Austin Marx) from Battle Creek, was second, while the VanB Boys (Tyler Beeks, Sergio Gonzalez, Levi Kruse, and Jenna Walton) from O’Neill, took third.  

Northeast Community College will next be in action on February 2, 2018 at the regional qualifier in St. Cloud, MN, as it attempts to qualify for the Vex World Championships.

 

                                                                --###--                                                                                                                                 

 

                                                     PHOTO CUTLINE

 

Cody Greenwood, North Bend, an information technology student at Northeast Community College, adjust his robot during a VEX Robotics competition held recently at the College.