ramtec holiday

279+ participate in the RAMTEC Vex Robotics Holiday Classic

Vex Holiday Classic 20125

The three-day RAMTEC Vex Robotics Holiday Classic was held at Tri-Rivers in Marion during the holiday break. Thirty Vex IQ Teams from Fairbanks, Hayes, North Union and Pleasant Elementary School as well as Grant, Pleasant and North Union Middle Schools competed for 6 Ohio State Vex IQ Robotics Championships qualifying bids.  Twenty- six middle and high school teams competed in the RAMTEC Holiday Vex Skills and Holiday Shootout events as well. More than 279 students participated in the event, according to Ritch Ramey, RAMTEC Ohio Coordinator.

“The event was meant to be a fun experience for students, as well as educational robotic team building activity to do over the holiday season,” said Ramey  “It also exposed them and their  families to the new state of the art RAMTEC training center for high school and adult training in robotics, automation CNC machining and welding,” said Ramey. Marion’s RAMTEC facility is the training center for the 9 RAMTEC sites now in Ohio. Students in attendance were treated to free lunches and a RAMTEC Holiday Classic T-shirt—all sponsored by RAMTEC Ohio, SMEEF PRIME, Depco llc, Honda Foundation and Consolidated Electric Coop grants.

 
The Vex IQ got the event started on Monday, December 21. The Teamwork Challenge was won by Pleasant Elementary team 11235D and Grant Middle School team 2281C. Tournament finalists also qualifying for the state championships were North Union Middle School team 10021D and Fairbanks Elementary 11140T.  First time Marion city school team Hayes Elementary School 11562R won the Design Award. Pleasant Elementary team 11235E won the driver skills with a score of 35. Pleasant Middle School team 53211B won the programming score with 26 points.  Pleasant Elementary School team 11235A won the Excellence Award.

Engineering awards judges were Amy Washburn of River Valley Middle School and Mark Edington RAMTEC Robotics Coordinator. “The students’ interviewing skills, building knowledge and engineering notebooks were exceptional,” said Edington.  The Hayes team was recently started as a school project by RAMTEC Engineering Junior Faith Demico. Demico and Hayes teacher Kari Thoman found victory in their very first Vex IQ event. “Faith and fellow classmates Canyon Gamble and Seth Reece have done an amazing job in a short period of time getting the Hayes Elementary teams team prepared for the event. They did not even have teams  four weeks ago. They are tremendous assets to our robotics program,” said Ramey.

    
 
On Tuesday, December 22, the RAMTEC Robot Driver and Programming Skills events were completed by 21 area teams. Teams operated their robots individually or autonomously in these events. “Many state record scores were recorded at the event,” said Ramey. The top teams will be eligible at the end of the season for the high school or middle school state championship hosted at Marion Harding by the RAMTEC Vex Robotics League March 4 and 5.

The top high school Skills performers in Programming Skills from Harding 4805x team members were Dan Rollins, Clayton Sloan, John Thacker, and Billy Davenport with a state record 144 points. That places them 44th in the world. Ridgedale’s 6302y team members Jaylin Tyler and Mitchel Reasoner won the Robot Drivers skills with a score of 144 points that places them 2nd in the state and 132nd in the world.  The middle school skills programming and Robot Driver contests were won by North Unions 4810a. The Wildcats team of Avery Zwayer, Gage Zwayer and Jared Smith scored 105 points for 2nd in the state and 261st in the world in Robot driver skills. They then set the state record with 122 points in programming skills that places them 101st in the world for middle school teams.

 
The final day, December 23, had 26 teams from Central Ohio compete in the RAMTEC Vex Robotics Shootout. Five teams would compete for the Ohio State Vex Robotics Championship spots. Teams from Harding 4805x and Ridgedale teams 6302x and 6302y qualified for the Ohio State Vex Robotics Championships by defeating the Three-team alliance of Elgin 6862m, Ridgedale 6203v and River Valley 1181b. The Excellence award was won by the Tri-River’s RAMTEC team 433 members Joshua Mack, Michael Winter, Caleb Atlee and Eric Jankowski. The Design Award went to North Union 6008a.
 
Local teams who have now qualified for the State Tournament include: River Valley, RAMTEC Tri-Rivers, Harding HS, Elgin, Grant, Ridgedale, Highland, Cardington, North Union, Hayes and Pleasant. The event is sponsored by RAMTEC Vex Robotics League with support from the Honda Foundation, Yaskawa Motoman Robotics, SMEEF PRIME and Consolidated Electric Cooperative. The next Vex Robotics contests will be a Meta Solutions on January 14 and at Highland Middle School on January 22.
 
For more information on RAMTEC Vex Robotics contests contact Ramey at rramey@triivers.com For information on RAMTEC visit ramtecohio.com