Nimitz High to Host Robotics Competition Feb. 8

On Saturday, Feb. 8th, Nimitz High School will host a Vex Robotics competition event, “The Nimitz Toss Up Tournament Challenge.” The event is sure to be fast-paced and exciting. Forty teams from across Texas will be competing and showing off their engineering skills. The public is welcome to attend and the cost is free.

Nimitz High School is located at 2005 W.W. Thorne Drive. The event will run from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m.

The action-packed day requires students to execute VEX Toss Up, a game that is played on a 12’x12’ square field. Two alliances – one “red” and one “blue” – composed of two teams each, compete in matches consisting of a fifteen-second autonomous period followed by one minute and forty-five seconds of driver-controlled play. The object of the game is to attain a higher score than your opponent alliance by scoring buckey balls and large balls into middle and goal zones, earning bonus points and doubling or negating goals.

What is VEX? The VEX Robotics Design System offers students an exciting platform for learning about areas rich with career opportunities spanning science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). These are just a few of the many fields students can explore by creating with VEX Robotics technology. Beyond science and engineering principles, a VEX Robotics project encourages teamwork, leadership and problem solving among groups. It also allows educators to easily customize projects to meet the level of students’ abilities. The VEX platform is expanding rapidly and is now found in middle schools, high schools and university labs around the globe. Robotics hobbyists also appreciate the advanced capabilities of the VEX System.

This VEX Robotics Competition is one of more than 400 tournaments supported by The Robotics Education & Competition (RECF) Foundation and various national, regional and local sponsors. The competition season culminates each spring, with the top performing teams from local and state VEX Robotics Competitions competing against each other at the VEX Robotics Competition World Championship, in Anaheim, CA. At the World Championship, these exemplary teams will have the opportunity to challenge their top-ranked peers from other countries around the world, including Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, India, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, United Kingdom and the United States of America. The students fabricated the robots using the Vex Robotics platform, which uses metal frames, parts, motors, sensors, servos and programming to control their robots. They have spent many days and hours building these competition robots. The students are engaged in learning STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) as a combined discipline.

Event sponsors are RECF-Robotics Education and Competition Foundation, TWC-Texas Workforce Commission, NASA, Northrop Grumman, Texas Instruments, EMC, Chevron, and Innovation First International.